Spring 2021

The sun is shining (today, anyway), the snow is gone, and things are looking up! I'm cautiously optimistic that we've turned the metaphorical corner. (Granted, in recent years, we've had rogue snowstorms in April, so I'm still holding my breath.)

16 days ago, Nick and I got our one-dose J&J COVID-19 vaccination! I put in a vaccine request on a whim (even though we weren't in any of the priority groups, and I made it clear that we weren't), and we were contacted a few days later to schedule our appointment. Nick wanted the one-dose vaccine, so we left the kids with my folks and drove up to Weston on a Saturday to receive it. Felt so relieved afterward... also achy with chills and a bad headache. That makes me think that I never got COVID over the past year, and would have had a rough time of it had I contracted the virus. 

10 days ago, Nick's folks (now a month past full vaccination) took the kids for the weekend. It was nice for everybody - they got to see the kids, the kids got to be somewhere else, and we got to have two kid-free nights for the first time in 15 months.

5 days ago, we left for a little spring break trip up to Superior and Duluth. It was nice to see different walls for a change of pace. Not only walls, but waterfalls! Spring melt made for some spectacular waterfall viewing at Amnicon Falls and Pattison State Parks in Wisconsin and Tettegouche and Gooseberry State Parks in Minnesota. It also made for copious amounts of mud on our 3-mile hike at Tettegouche... We spent much of the time with my parents, who joined us. We got back yesterday afternoon.

One of the more spectacular views we saw

We're now turning our attention to the future, with summer ball starting up soon (Felix has his first tournament team practice tomorrow night). Soon, we'll get the kids signed up for summer camp. We're just about set for our kids to return to in-person school next year. 

Awesome things: It's baseball season (Go Brewers!), hearing Bob Uecker call ball games (worthy of its own mention), being able to take a vacation, science and vaccines!

Rose Bowl

As usual, November and December were a whirlwind of activity. We spent some time with family at Thanksgiving, enjoyed holiday parties in December, and Iris started wrestling (at her own request).

She's a natural

Our traditional Christmas Eve theme picture. :o)

When the Badgers were selected to go to the Rose Bowl game this year, we jumped on the opportunity to go along. Nick and I hadn't been to a bowl game since the Badgers went to the Rose Bowl on 1/1/11, when Felix was a toddler. Again, we decided to leave the kids with Nick's parents and tag along with my parents on the trip.

30 Dec: We got up early and caught our flight from GRB to MSP before 7 am. It was rainy in GB and we flew over a snowstorm that was hitting home at the time. It was quite snowy and windy in MSP, which was slightly unnerving. We were joined by my parents, who had driven there the day before. We kicked off the trip with Bloody Marys at a bar, and relaxed before our flight. We were supposedly on-time for our 11:40 flight to LAX, so we boarded the plane. Then we waited an hour to join the deicing line and rejoin the departure queue. Had a nice view of the deicing machine and blizzard outside... Yikes. Very happy to finally get in the air. The flight was uneventful, and we landed around 2 pm PST. Palm trees! 65 degrees! Yay! We got our bags, got my folk's rental car, and endured the joy that is the 405. At least the traffic gave us many opportunities to spot interesting vehicles and license plates. We got to our Airbnb apartment in Burbank and rested for a bit. The folks came back to pick us up around 5:45 and we headed to Pasadena. An acquaintance of ours, Janel, found out we were going and invited us to a couple Badger family & friends events (She's the aunt of a current player). We joined her and others at the Brookside golf course for a dinner/party. We were introduced to Garrett Rand and his parents. Had a nice time, and stayed until about 8. The time change and lack of sleep was affecting me, so it was good to get back to our apartment, although I struggled to sleep in this unfamiliar room.

December 30

31 Dec: We headed to Hollywood today, since it was a gorgeous, sunny, low 60s day. Many other people had the same idea, apparently, because it was very crowded. Also very overrated, if I'm being honest. From there, Nick wanted to view Mulholland Drive, so my dad handed over the keys and let Nick take us on the twisty-turny road. It was lunch time, so we found a block on Ventura Ave that allowed Nick and I to get poke bowls and my parents to get burgers. All sated, we decided to go to a "Badger bar" in Santa Monica. It turned out to be more of a modern-German-style place with $9-10 beers. Yeah, not so Badgery on a non-game day. We then headed east to Pasadena and parked. My mom wanted to show us Barney's Beanery and we were not disappointed. It was on Colorado Blvd, and we passed many people set up to camp before the Rose Parade tomorrow. Also old cars cruised the strip. Party atmosphere. At the Beanery, we sat between a few groups of Oregon fans. We enjoyed ourselves talking with them and got some fun pictures. After a drink, we headed to the restaurant where I had made reservations, and we were joined by Nick's sister Natalie, his aunt Joanne and uncle Clarence, also in town for the game. We had a nice dinner catching up and eating tons of tasty Cajun seafood. Getting out of Pasadena was a challenge, given all the road closures put in place for the Parade. Made it back without incident. Too much spicy food, knowing we had an early night, and New Year's fireworks helped conspire to limit my rest that night.

December 31

1 Jan 2020: The folks wanted to get to the stadium early, so they picked us up at 6:30. Beautiful sunrise, light traffic, easy parking... among many Ducks fans. Sigh. Mom wanted to see the Badger Band in the Rose Parade, so we hiked the 2.2 miles to get to a place on the route. I found a large planter box on which I could stand and get a better view. We watched about 20 parade entries until the Band went by, then walked back to the car. We went to the 2nd Badger Family & Friends event, this one a tailgate party with many more people in attendance. We got some food, and since we were in a nice place with a table and shade, we decided to sit and play some cards to kill time. We left there around 12:30, headed back to our car for a pre-game Bloody and to get ready for the game. We discovered a way into the stadium with no lines, and took advantage of it. We found our seats... near the 50 yard line, press box-side, 3rd row from the bottom. We were in a great position... to have no view at all. We found ourselves watching the lone video board more than the field, since the players blocked our view. It was an exciting game, but it's difficult to win when you give up 21 points on 4 turnovers. That made us Sad Badgers. Did you see us on TV? A family member did! The lack of sleep was catching up to me, and there were times I was afraid I would fall asleep in the middle of the game. Then an exciting play would happen, and I'd get a 2nd, 3rd, ... nth wind. Alas, we lost and then listened to Badger homers break down the game on the radio as we waited for the parking lots to clear. We got back to our apartment around 7:30 and I called it a day shortly thereafter.

January 1

2 Jan: Our last full day in LA. We checked out of our apartment, and did a Warner Bros Studios tour at 9. Mom and I had been on one a long time ago, and thought it was a good one, so we did it again. Many costumes from newer movies (Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Harry Potter), and we got to see a few sets (like Conan's studio) and props. Our tour guide was from Milwaukee and appreciated seeing our Badger spirit still in action. Nick was interested in seeing the Griffith Park Observatory, so we headed there. Everyone else had the same idea, and the only available parking was FAR. Given our 5+ miles walked yesterday, that wasn't well-received, so we just drove past it. We headed to the La Brea area instead, stopping for some street-style tacos for lunch. Mom had the idea of going to the Tar Pits, but the parking lot was full, so we drove past and found the Peterson Automotive Museum instead. That was a great place for the 4 of us, with many interesting collector and movie/TV vehicles to see. We killed about an hour and a half there, then walked to an Irish pub we had passed. Not much for ambiance or patrons... we were 4 of the 5 people in there besides the bartender. Finished our beers, then headed out. We decided that a view of the ocean was one more to-do item, and headed to Santa Monica again. This time, we parked pretty close to the Pier, and took a walk to the end. On the way, we picked up some souvenirs (personalized key chains for the kids). Stopped for tropical drinks at the restaurant at the end as we waited for the sun to set. Boy, was it worth it. We decided to eat dinner there, too, and took in the pier's colors on the way back to the car after. Nick and I had a red-eye out tonight, so we headed to LAX after dinner. We bid my folks farewell, got through security quickish, and whiled away the time in the gate area before our 11:40 pm flight. We made it back to Green Bay the next morning after a connecting flight in Detroit and picked up the kids. It was nice to see them and get back home again.

January 2

Felix: 10 yrs & Iris: 7 yrs

Barcelona 2019

Hola! Nick and I just returned from our trip to Barcelona, and, boy, do I have a lot to unpack (figuratively).

October 11-12: We started planning this trip for the two of us back in June, when I found some super cheap airline tickets. We left our kids to my parents, and took off to Chicago midday on Friday. We had a red-eye direct to Barcelona, and although our 10:05 was delayed until 11 pm, we were finally on our way. We left the rainy, chilly Midwest good-bye. We arrived in Barcelona at about 2:15 pm local time on Saturday. We then waited TWO HOURS in line to go through the passport check (no joke, we got past it at 4:25 pm). Catching the bus into town was surprisingly quick and easy after that. We made out way into the glorious, sunny, mid-70s day. We got off at Plaça Espanya, walked 15 minutes to our Poble-Sec-area Airbnb apartment, and were let in. It was a great, 3rd floor apartment, with a kitchen, washing machine, and enough space for us to stretch out. We rested a bit before going to the restaurant near Paral-lel that I had booked two months ago, Bodega 1900. It was our first meal in Spain, and, damn, did we pick a good one. It was a highly rated place, and for good reason. We ordered glasses of house vermouth and chose the "surprise menu", where the attentive waitstaff would continue to bring us tapas plates on the menu until we cried Uncle. I didn't take pictures of everything we were served, but many are in the bottom third of the photo below. My favorite was the grilled fresh squid with onions caramelized in ink. Mmmm. After dinner, we headed back to the apartment and tried to find the Badger football game on TV. We ended up listening to it on the radio until we gave in to exhaustion at midnight.

So much good food!

October 13: Sundays are generally pretty quiet around Barcelona, so I had signed us up for a free Runner Bean walking tour of the Gothic Quarter. We slept in past 8, then walked down to Plaça Reial to be early for our 11 am tour. We got put in a group with Jessie, an Australian woman living in Barcelona for several years. Our group of 22 weaved in and out of the narrow streets as she gave us details as to the history of Barcelona and certain sights at which we stopped. It was a great introduction to the city and area. Afterward, we headed to a restaurant she recommended, and while the food was good, the service was disappointingly slow. We did a bit more walking around the Born area, then headed back to our apartment via the waterfront. We relaxed a bit and said hi to the kids, then decided to give our legs a workout by walking up nearby Montjuïc. It was a little cloudy and we got a bit off-path, but we made it to the castle/fortification and had a look around. We had a nice view of the port and the city below. The sun set while we were coming back down, and it got dark quickly. We walked under the orangy lights to Carrer de Blai, where we found a restaurant and had our first taste of pinxos (basically, an hors d'oeurve on a slice of French bread with a large toothpick securing them together). We ate until full, then headed back to the apartment for the night.

Gothic Quarter tour sights, waterfront, Montjuic

October 14: This morning, we got ready and took our first Metro ride to get ourselves to La Sagrada Familía basilica for our 10 am entry time. It was another gorgeous mid-70s day. We spent a couple of hours taking in all the wondrous details of Gaudí and other artists. I really can't explain it all in detail. Suffice it to say that it's definitely a must-see in Barcelona.

Sagrada Famila basilica

After our time there, we decided to get away from the crowds for a bit. We took a walk along Carrer d'Aragó, stopping for a quick sandwich and tiny coffee. We noticed the traffic around us was getting jammed, and realized why when we crossed a police barrier. The streets around Passeig de Gràcia were all blocked to traffic, so it was very strange to walk along a multilane road with only pedestrians in the streets. We were looking at the houses on the Block of Discord (like Casa Batlló) when we realized that there was a demonstration/protest in the works and we were part of it. Backstory: Two years ago, the Catalunya region held a vote for independence. That was considered illegal under Spanish law, and the leaders were arrested. Today, they announced the sentences for the jailed politicians (9-13 years). Many locals were NOT happy about this, and took to the streets. They converged on Plaça Catalunya as we watched from the sidelines. It seems peaceful, and there were no police officers in the mix, so I didn't get a strong tension vibe. While we watched, many started pouring into the Metro to go to the airport to protest there. We decided that was the time to leave, so we walked away from it, and stopped at a German bar for a couple of beers. The crowd dispersed and we continued our walk back to our apartment. On the way, we stopped at Mercat de Sant Antoni, where we bought some bread, ham and cheese to make our dinner, and I found a necklace with a pendant shaped like the paving blocks that are all over the city. It was mid-afternoon, and we were hungry, so after dropping things off at our apartment, we went to a ramen restaurant nearby for a change of pace. That hit the spot. We got gelato for dessert on our walk back to Carrer de Margarit. It started to rain, so we decided to stay in for the evening. We had our Netflix account hooked up to the TV, and ate our dinner late while watching episodes of BoJack Horseman. In the middle of the night, I was woken by a thunderstorm moving through.

Protests! Buildings!

October 15: The rain overnight washed the city clean and revealed a marvelously clear day, again in the mid-70s. We had some time to kill in the morning, so after we got ready, we walked through El Raval to La Rambla. There, we visited the Mercat de la Boqueria. There was an amazing variety of food (and people) there. So interesting and so many selfie-sticks. We caught the Metro from Liceu to Lesseps, hiked our way up to Park Güell, and arrived within our appointed half hour. We spent the next two hours wandering all over the park, looking at the Gaudí tilework, and the incredibly clear views from the hill towards the sea. We've got super calves after that excursion. We were hungry for lunch after, so we found a little hole in the wall place that definitely didn't cater to tourists (no English anywhere), but where we got a delicious Iberico ham flatbread with arugula and beers. We walked back to Passeig de Gràcia, found we had just missed another protest, and walked to see the Arc de Triomf. I liked that there were sculpted bats on it. More walking, back through El Born and into the Gothic Quarter, where we stopped for a pint of Strongbow at an Irish pub. Walked through the very diverse El Raval area to our dinner spot for the night - L'Amfora, where we had seafood paella and a delicious bottle of local white wine. Decided to walk to the Magic Fountain, which, unfortunately, was not running. The MNAC was lit up instead. We walked back through the Poble-Sec neighborhood under the orange lights back to our apartment.

Park Guell and a bit of La Rambla

October 16: Today was our first day waking up with the sunrise - 7:45. We headed to Plaça Catalunya to be there before 9 am. We were booked on a Montserrat tour and wine tasting experience. We were put into a group of 13 with Agnes, and there were two tour groups headed on the same excursion. We all boarded the coach bus and headed out of the city north towards the mountains. The other guide, Pol, gave a detailed description of local history and the history of the Montserrat Monastery. It took about an hour to get up to the monastery, on some very windy roads. Our bus was among dozens of other buses there, so many, many people. Agnes gave us about a half hour tour of the different areas of interest around the monastery, the history of it and some interesting things that are done now (like there's a boy's choir, and the monks make liquor). We got an hour of free time, so we bought a variety pack of the liquors, then walked along a windy, steep path to a place where we could get a great view of the monastery, the valley below, and all the way to the sea. After our free time was over, we got back on the bus and headed toward a quaint, quiet winery. It was about 2:30, so Agnes skipped the tour and took us straight for the tapas and wine tasting. Nice flow of conversation about the wines and life in general among the variety of people on our tour (a few midwesterners like us, two Canadians, a Danish couple, two women from Australia...). After the tasting, we got the brief tour and an opportunity to try the winery's cava. We did that while talking to one of the Australian women about the size of the spiders they have there. That was a pretty unique experience overall. We headed back to Barcelona and started our walk back. We stopped at La Boqueria market for food, and left with a cone full of whole, breaded fried fishes (not sure if they were sardines or anchovies or something else), and fried baby squiddies. Yum. We walked back to our apartment and relaxed... until we learned that the general strike planned for Catalunya was going to impact our flight plans for Friday. @#$%. Nick got on the phone with the airline while I looked up alternatives. They offered us a flight home on Sunday. I found an overnight bus for Thursday night that would take us from Barcelona to Madrid, where we've be able to get our scheduled transatlantic flight. We went for my plan instead, and bought those tickets. That was a bit of a curveball... Apparently, the protests have been getting rowdy during the night, burning things and clashing with police. We didn't see any of that during the day on our walks, but read about it the next day.

Montserrat Monastery

Can Bonastre winery

October 17 - Our last full(ish) day in Barcelona. We had pretty much done all of the things around the city that we wanted to do, so it was a matter of let's-not-miss and better-rest-up. We first headed back to the Barcelona Cathedral for a look around. It was honestly pretty dark and stuffy in there. Nick said he felt like something in the air was affecting his sinuses. We didn't stick around too long after that. We walked to yet another market (Santa Catarina's), then walked back toward La Rambla. We found a bar off the main street with 30 beers on tap. Stopped there to sample a few local brews and get the requisite bread-with-tomatoes tapas to tide us over. We walked back to the apartment, checked to make sure everything was okay with our flight from Madrid, then walked up to explore more of Montjuïc. Another gorgeous day. We wandered through gardens, along paths, past museums. We found ourselves by the Olympic Stadium. It was open and free, so we took advantage of that. Quick look around, then back outside. We found the "path of fame", where the footprint of various famous early 1990s athletes were made into large bronze disks set into the pavement. Nick has the same size feet as Michael Jordan :o) We walked back to the apartment and decided to rest. But it's not easy to rest when there's a helicopter hovering that you can see from the window... We learned that while we were out walking, protesters had blocked the Paral-lel road in both directions and the helicopter was watching it. Oh boy. We packed up our stuff, watched some shows, then headed to Carrer de Blai for an early dinner of pinxos. We ate (me, nervously so), had glasses of vermouth, then headed back to the apartment. We killed time watching BoJack, then left the apartment for good at 9:30. We took our bags and headed to the Metro. I was concerned about protests impeding our travel to the bus station, but we didn't have any problems heading there after all, thankfully. We got to the bus station, waited with many other people, got our assigned seats, and left at 11 pm. Gotta love the people on the bus who have no issue crinkling plastic bottles in the middle of the night.

Barcelona Cathedral & Montjuïc

October 18: We managed to get a few hours of sleep before arriving at the transit station in Madrid at 6 am. We caught a bus to the airport and got to our terminal at 6:30 am. We got checked in to our flight, and made the long trek to our terminal. It was surreal being the only people in the terminal for a couple of hours. We rested on the uncomfortable seats, got kicked out of the gate area in order to go through yet another passport check there an hour later. Ugh, but whatever. We were the first in line for the economy class check, and therefore were selected for the random bag check. As were about a third of the passengers. WTF. The flight was long, but left at about 11:45 am local time and got us back to Chicago a bit after 2 pm CDT.

Some other collections of pictures of things we saw:

To market, to market!

The drinks we drank

Details, details

Strange and unusual sights

Second Honeymoon

Nick and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary in May. We decided that we finally had the means and motivation to do something I've wanted to do for years - take a trip to Europe. We started making plans way back in January of this year, pulling the trigger on what would become our second honeymoon. We decided on visiting Munich (my choice) and Prague (Nick's) this time around. Reader, beware: many pictures of beer be herein.

August 16/17: Travel Day & Arrival in Munich

Our adventure began on Thursday, August 16. We drove the kids up to stay with Nick's parents for the first half of our trip (they'd be staying with mine for the second), then drove down to Chicago. It's a good thing I planned for us to get to O'Hare two and a half hours early - the economy lots we were monitoring we all full and we had no backup plan. Fortunately, one was accepting vehicles when we arrived. Panic #1 subsided. We hopped on the bus to take us to the terminals. Cue Panic #2 - they had one flight to Munich leaving from Terminal 1, and we couldn't pull up our gate information fast enough to see if it was ours. We hopped off at Nick's insistence that we could catch another bus if it wasn't our flight. Thankfully, it was. We then spent the time before our flight waiting in several lines, finding our gate and celebrating the fact we made it that far with an overpriced beer.

Our flight was a little behind schedule, but we still took off by 6:30 pm. We tried to sleep on the red-eye but neither one of us could get comfortable. I ended up watching Pitch Perfect 3 and the flight information channel. We got into the Munich airport around 9:30 am Friday morning, and had little problem going through their customs and baggage. We bought tickets and made our way to the S-bahn platform. We loaded on to the train we needed to get to our apartment and away we went. We got to our stop, then lugged our luggage for a couple of blocks to our Bogenhausen neighborhood apartment which I found on Airbnb. We were too early to get in, so we backtracked a block and found a little pub at which to eat and drink while we waited. I dusted off my very rusty German. (Too rusty, apparently. The server didn't understand me and brought two meals instead of the one I wanted). We checked into our lovely, cool, bottom-floor apartment and relaxed. 

Since it was only midday and we were finally in Germany, I got my second wind and dragged us out to explore. This was my third time in Munich, so I had a few places I wanted to show Nick. Nick, however, was mainly interested in sampling all the beers Munich had to offer, but gamely followed my lead. We took the U-bahn to Odeonsplatz and walked through the hot, crowded streets. I wanted to get my souvenir hunt out of the way, so I found the store I had heard about online that sold reasonably priced Tracht (traditional German clothing). We walked out many minutes later with my purchase of a classy silver silk dirndl, tasteful blouse, and teal apron. I wanted something that I could wear to more than just Oktoberfests (and in fact, I did wear it to the wedding we attended the weekend after we returned :o). Next, we headed for Nick's desired souvenir - a memory of another beer. We found a Hackerhaus restaurant and sat under the umbrellas in the street. We learned first-hand that there are bees a-plenty this summer in Munich... We relaxed and enjoyed the atmosphere, although it was pretty warm (high 80s). I realized where we were in the city, and after finishing our beverages, took Nick down the street to see the Asamkirche. This church was like a model house for builders - the brothers showed off everything they could do. So much Baroque detail crammed into a tiny space.

It was getting to be close to 5 pm, so we headed up to the Marienplatz so Nick could witness the Glockenspiel at the Neues Rathaus. We joined an enormous crowd of other tourists waiting. And then the bells played and played and played and then the little figures moved slowly and that was it. If you're expecting an exciting spectacle, look elsewhere... We struck out to find dinner. I led Nick to the Hofbräuhaus. It was pretty crowded, but we were lucky to find a table inside. We ordered beers, a giant pretzel and a cold cut plate. We headed back to our apartment after that, as exhaustion was starting to set in.

August 18: Munich Museums

Since I had been to Munich twice before, I let Nick take the lead on our first full day. He decided: museums! Before we went to his picks, I led us up to the Olympic Park via the U-bahn so he could see where the 1972 Olympics took place. We didn't do much exploring there; instead, we did a brief tour of the BMW World building, then headed back down into the city. Nick had never seen Greek or Roman statues in person, so our first stop was the Glyptothek. I'm not really much of an art museum-goer. There's only so much interest that the same pose or scene holds for me. But I tried, even finding a Roman doppelgänger. Once we had exhausted that museum, we found a quick bite then continued to the Alte Pinakothek (the old art gallery). Painting after painting of biblical scenes and portraits with a few Rubens thrown in for good measure. A few interested me, but after a while, I started to take more of an interest in the frames around the paintings instead.

Once Nick had his fill, we went to museum #3 for the day: the Residez - the former home of the Wittelsbach monarchs. That had much more interest for me. We opted to do the Treasury, too, and were impressed by the 500+ year old handiwork on crowns, vessels, tables, boxes, you name it. We also toured the lavish apartments, and saw an unsettling collection of relics that included at least 3 infant skeletons. Yikes. My feet were getting sore by the time we wrapped up there, so we headed nearby and ate an early dinner at the Spatenhaus restaurant by Max-Joseph Platz. It was still early and becoming a beautiful evening, so we took a tram toward the English Garden. We walked the few blocks up to and into the park. I showed Nick where the surfers ride the waves, and we walked up to beer garden at the Chinese Tower. We realized we were low on Euros at this point, so we both ended up with 1 liter beers to meet the credit card minimum. We enjoyed the Gemütlichkeit of being in one of the largest beer gardens in Munich with an oompah band playing and people all around. That feeling lasted until we went to take out more money from the ATM and realized that we only brought our credit cards along on the trip and didn't have a PIN. The mood turned rather sour after that. (learn from our mistake - take your debit card!). We headed back to our apartment and tried to formulate a plan... I had a rough night of feeling helpless and like an idiot about the situation.

August 19: Mike's Bike Tour

It was Sunday and there wasn't much we could do to change our cash situation, so we made the best of it. We had already bought tickets to go on a Mike's Bike Tour of Munich, so our itinerary for the day was set. We headed to the Marienplatz early and met up with our tour group at 9:30. I had been on the classic bike tour both of my previous times in Munich, so this time we went for the longer Superior bike tour. Our guide, Kevin, was from Ireland and very knowledgeable. This tour got more in-depth on pre- and post-WWII history, which Nick liked. We ate a good lunch back at the Chinese Tower beer garden and were visited by what I think was an Asian giant hornet. Egads. After the tour, we headed back to the apartment and rested. We struck out for dinner, not having much luck finding a place that accepted credit cards. Ended up at a nice little Vietnamese restaurant.

August 20: Mittenwald

Today we headed out on a day trip to the Alps. We took the 8:30 am train from the main train station down to Mittenwald, a little town in an Alpine valley on the German-Austrian border. It was much cooler in the mountains than it had been in Munich. We walked through the pedestrian area with the lovely painted buildings and headed down and out of town. We first struck out on the walking path that would lead us to the Leutaschklamm, a steep gorge. We hiked up the narrow switchback trail, trying to keep our footing on the gravel path. Finally making it to the top we found ourselves on a catwalk to the suspension bridge hung hundreds of feet over the rushing river below. I have a slight issue with heights and a walkway through which I can see and a small swaying bridge did little to allay my fears. At that point, my chief concern was to not drop my phone over the rail. We hightailed it back to the start of the path shortly after that.

We walked back into Mittenwald, stopping at the Brauerei Mittenwald for lunch. My appetite hadn't been great the last couple of days, but it was starting to come back. Good beer helped. After eating, we walked to the mountains on the other side of town and took a gondola up to the top of the Karwendelspitze. It was about 50-60 degrees and clouds were coming in when we got up there. We figured we had some time, so we hiked around the loop from the welcome station. At the far side, we saw that we were on the border with Austria. Lovely views, although visibility was obscured by clouds which grew steadily heavier as we were up there. Nick developed a bloody nose from the dry air, and so we didn't waste much time finishing our hike. We headed back down in the gondola (completely full this time) and then on to the train station. We caught the next train to Munich and headed back to our apartment. We cooked dinner on our apartment that night and started packing to leave the next morning.

August 21: Traveling to Prague

I had purchased train tickets to go from Munich to Prague today and after having checked the timetable the day before at the station, we said goodbye to our apartment and got to the train station at 8 am. We bought some breakfast and went to find our train. Which wasn't at the track the timetable stated. Or anywhere else, for that matter. We were told that there was no train to Prague today. Say what? We then headed to the ticketing office, where we were informed that the only way we could get to Prague today was by bus. Not ideal, but as it was our only option, we took it. At least we had gotten there early and had time to spare. We walked to the bus station, both frustrated by the change of events and the fact that one of our suitcases was locked and the combination wouldn't work. At least we now had a couple of hours to sit and wait and attempt to crack the code. After a couple of minutes of work, I figured out how I had mis-set it to begin with, and once opened, reset it properly.

The bus arrived, we got on, and away we went. We had nice seats up front on the double-decker bus. The trip was about 4.5 hours with only one brief stop to change drivers, so it took less time that the train would have. Once in Prague, I heaved a deep sigh of relief once we had the Czech Koruna in hand that I had asked my mom to wire to us via Western Union the day before. Cash! Whew! We hopped on the first tram that would take us to our Airbnb apartment, a lovely little place on the second floor overlooking a busy street. It was hot here, too. Thankfully, there was a sturdy fan to provide some air movement. After checking in and settling in to the place, we headed out to get my Prague souvenir - a nose piercing. I've wanted my nostril pierced for years, and thought it would be an interesting reminder of the trip. We found the shop at which I wanted it done, not too far from our apartment. They were busy but I made an appointment to come back later, so we found a nearby bar to try our first Czech beers. Pleasantly relaxed from the beer, we headed back to the shop and I got my nostril pierced. A brief sting and done! We next headed out to find dinner. Our first attempts were overcrowded, but we found a little pizza place that looked appealing and had a nice dinner there. We finished up the night walking through the Republic Square and buying a few souvenirs before taking the tram back to our apartment.

August 22: Prague Sights

We headed out early to take the trams up to the Prague Castle. We got there right around opening time. As did so many others... Especially Asian tour groups. They were everywhere! We bought our tickets and headed right for St Vitus. It was very impressive inside, and the morning sunlight did wonderful things to the stained glass. We didn't linger very long there (very crowded). We passed on touring the old palace (too similar to the Residenz), walked through the basilica, and headed out. My feet weren't happy, so we took it easier today. We left the castle grounds and hopped a tram to get to the other side of the river.

There, we found a lovely little cafe. After refreshing ourselves, we headed up to the Charles Bridge. It was a 90 degree day, and there were so many people out and about. We walked the length of the Charles Bridge, then headed over to the Jewish Quarter. The lines were exceptionally long, so we headed toward the old town square instead (why we thought that would be less busy...). The Astronomical Clock was being repaired, so we didn't even get a glimpse of it. Instead, we walked on toward Wenceslas Square and found a cafeteria-style restaurant. Good traditional food, beer and prices. We then walked back toward Republic Square. We caught the tram back to our apartment, made reservations at the pub next door for dinner, then headed up for a video chat with the kids. We relaxed until dinner time, then had some nice traditional fare and beer at the Lokal next door.

August 23: More Prague

We really didn't have any plans for the day. We decided to head toward Wenceslas Square. We walked and saw the Kafka statue that was installed a few years ago. Pretty neat how the slices of his head rotate (that sounds weird to say, but that's exactly what it does). We headed back to the square, bought some postcards for the kids, then found a tiny cafe at which I could write on them. The waitress was happy to practice her English on us and told us that they hadn't had a summer as hot and dry as this in many years. It was shaping up to be another 90 degree day. We finished up there, then headed to the square. It's the 50th anniversary of the Prague Spring, so there were more monuments and memorials around.

We found a post office and mailed the postcards. It was near the Mucha Museum, so we went there and viewed the exhibits on display. Unfortunately, the Slav Epic is on tour, so there was no hope of seeing that. We walked through Old Town to the Republic Square and went to try traditional open-faced sandwiches for lunch. I thought they were pretty tasty, but Nick was getting overheated. We headed for a beer club near our apartment, where Nick had his pick of hundreds of bottles or six on tap. It was cool and quiet, just what we needed. After imbibing and relaxing, we headed back to our apartment. We struck out for a restaurant in the Karlin neighborhood that was a tankovna (serving beer delivered fresh from breweries in tanks instead of kegs) and had some good food and drink there. We took a nice, leisurely stroll through the neighborhood before heading back to our apartment for the evening.

August 24: Pilsner Urquell

We picked Plzen (Pilsen) as our day trip location for our time in Prague. We got train tickets and headed out in our own private compartment to Pilsen. It was about a 1.5 hour trip with some very beautiful scenery. It was cooler and cloudy today. We had brewery tour tickets for 1:00, and since we were early, we found a restaurant and had lunch. We ate on the back patio and made friends with a neighborhood cat. :o)

We walked back to the other side of the train station, determining that Pilsen was much scruffier than Prague. Much more dilapadated, at least where we were. It didn't leave us feeling too comfortable walking around. At least it was daytime, and we were aware of our surroundings. We made our way over to the Pilsner Urquell Brewery. We were early for our tour, so we stopped for a fresh beer at the pub onsite first. While we were in there, it started pouring rain. Good thing the tour was mostly inside!

Since Nick and I do some homebrewing, we have an appreciation for brewing on a large scale. We had a knowledgeable, English-speaking guide. We got to see the bottling plant, old brew house, new brew house and part of the underground tunnel system where the beer was fermented. They still make batches of beer the old-fashioned way for tour groups to sample. We ended the tour in the gift shop (of course). We purchased a few souvenirs and then headed back to the train station. We had some time to kill, so we first found a cafe and had a coffee before we left. It occurs to me that our beverages on this trip were primarily coffee and beer. We took the train back to Prague. This train was full, and had a very unhappy toddler sitting in our car. That wasn't very nice... We got back to our apartment then headed out to find dinner, ending up at nice Karlin neighborhood restaurant.

August 25: Last Day in Prague

It was a much cooler day today. We headed out early to go down to the Vysehrad fortress. It was nice and quiet down there, with few tourists. We walked around, visiting the interesting cemetery where many well-to-do Prague citizens were buried. One was Antonin Dvorak, the composer. After we walked past his tomb, we heard a man shouting "Antonin! Antonin!" and then classical music playing. An older Asian gentleman was holding his cellphone aloft and jamming to the piece. Odd way to pay one's respects, yet fitting. We finished walking around, then headed back toward town on the Metro. We wanted to find a place to eat brunch, and ended up walking to the cafe at which we stopped two days before.

Once fed and rested, we headed up along the river to the Prague Beer Museum, which was not a museum, but rather a pub with 30 beers on tap. We tried a few at our leisure, before heading back out. We meandered back through Old Town to Republic Square. We headed back to our apartment, then got ready for dinner. We had a nice dinner, then went to find a wine bar for something different. We found one on our street that was serving burčák, a young, still-fermenting Moravian specialty wine. It's good. We had a nice, quiet night, packing up to leave in the morning.

August 26: Heading Home

We woke early (5:30 am local, 10:30 pm CDT). We got to the airport without issue with plenty of time. We spent our remaining Czech cash on coffee, macarons and a bottle of slivovice (plum brandy), then headed home. We first flew to Zurich, where we had a short layover, then a much longer flight back to Chicago. We, alas, had an unhappy toddler kitty-corner from us. At least he slept for a few hours. We amused ourselves as best we could on the flight, then landed in Chicago at 3:30. We went through customs and were quite relieved to see our bags (our car key was in one of them). We headed home, getting back to our house and kids at 8:30 pm.

All of our pictures are here. If you're interested in where exactly (and I do mean exactly - trains, trams and all) we went, I made this Google map. Videos I took on the trip are here.

The beers were all bigger than me, but I won. I think.

DC Spring Break

My 200th post! Our big excitement since my last post was our Spring Break trip to Washington, DC, last week. We left on Sunday, March 25 to begin the kids' first road trip and returned seven days later...

​

We were up and out of the house by 5:45 to begin our road trip. Prior to this, the farthest we had driven with the kids was the 3.5-hour trip we took to Milwaukee last year, so we didn't know how the kids would handle DAYS in the car. Turns out, with enough stuff and snacks, surprisingly well! We drove through Chicago (with the kids marveling at the skyline) to Indianapolis. Felix's stomach did not handle the bumps of Indiana well... Good thing I brought many garbage bags and we were due for a stop. Both kids enjoyed visiting​ the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Felix took pictures of every single vehicle. I set Iris on tasks, looking for things like all the cars with a #1 on them. Unfortunately, snow on the track kept us from doing a track tour. A couple hours later, we were at our hotel outside Dayton. The kids were pretty disappointed that the lock to the pool door died just as we tried to open it, and the hotel was unwilling to fix it. :(

Future drivers?

The next day, the kids got to add several more states to their quickly-growing collection: PA, WV, MD, and VA. They enjoyed getting sandwich makings from a grocery store and eating lunch at a scenic overlook in Pennsylvania. Lots of mountains, and we spotted a license plate we hadn't seen before: Newfoundland and Labrador. Sweet. ​We got to our airbnb outside DC in late afternoon and settled in. We started watching our first season of the Great British Baking Show, and got takeout from a nearby French restaurant.

Lunch at a scenic overlook outside Uniontown, PA

Our first day in the city! ... turned out to be pretty gray and cool. We decided to take the kids to the National Air and Space Museum. We gave the kids their first taste of the Metro and they both liked it a lot. Unfortunately, we found out pretty quickly that we weren't the only ones with Spring Break plans in DC, as it took us 45 minutes in line just to enter the museum. Once in, we split up - Felix with Nick, Iris with me. I let Iris lead me anywhere she fancied around the museum. She especially liked the interactive kids exhibits we found (like getting to sit in a Cessna and play with the controls), and spent a whopping 10 minutes just riding the escalators while I watched. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Iris got a stuffed space shuttle and Felix got a model Blue Angel as souvenirs. We also tried "moon cheese". We were a little late leaving the museum to get food at our first choice​ of nearby food truck, so we settled for the "best crepes in DC" food truck. Delicious, despite the rain. We didn't think the kids were up for more museums, so we headed back to our hotel to relax. We got dinner at a nearby Dogfish Head Alehouse. Nice time, that! Another quiet evening. Or it would have been, if we hadn't spotted a mouse in the apartment... Nick was less than thrilled, but our airbnb host made amends.

Tall kids, taller rockets

Crepes!

Wednesday's forecast was again rainy and cool, so we opted to buy tickets for the DC Trolley Tour. We started off late and headed straight for Arlington National Cemetery. We got on a tram which took us on a tour of the cemetery. We witnessed the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and saw a full military funeral with band, guard, and horse-drawn caisson. I'm not sure the experience really sunk in with the kids, but it was meaningful. After the chill of Arlington, we headed to Georgetown on the Metro and visited a restaurant recommended to us by our host, Thunder Burger. That was quite tasty! From there, back on the Metro to get us to where we could pick up the full Trolley Tour. We caught it kind of late - around 3, but there as enough time to take the full tour. It was kind of raining, so it was good to be inside seeing the sites. Iris kept thinking the big buildings were the White House. Finally, we saw it. The trolley driver was nice and let a small group of us hope out to see the MLK monument, which I hadn't seen yet. He also went out of his way to drop us off where we could get some dinner by Chinatown. Felix was a bit crabby by that point and it was busy with hockey fans, so we headed back for base camp and a quiet evening.

It may not be exciting, but it's important.

All aboard!

Thursday morning we spent in, getting some laundry done and watching the end of the Great British Baking Show while the kids played ski jumping with their animals. We headed out after an early lunch and made our way to the National Zoo. The very high escalator on the way out of the station scared the kids. It was a lovely day - bright and nearly 80! That meant many other people had same idea. The zoo was quite crowded. Iris was a bit crabby to start, but she warmed up and both kids ended up enjoying themselves, especially after we rode the carousel and got the kids small stuffed animal souvenirs. We especially enjoyed going through the Amazonia exhibit. From there, we walked back up to the zoo entrance and met Nick's sister across the street for dinner at Duke's Counter. The kids were great, the food was great, and Nick got a chance to catch up with his sister. That was a lovely way to end our time in DC!

Loving the Amazonia exhibit and the arapaimas

Yay for family visits!

The two days spent driving home involved a lot of rain/snow/windy weather, more carsickness from Felix, and increasing irritation. But on the plus side, we did get a hotel with a functioning pool on the way back, and Nick got to test drive a Tesla at a dealership in Chicago. We were all very happy with the trip and to be safely back home.

The front seat of the Tesla model S sure looks spacious...

... compared to being squashed between two kids seats in the back!

Awesome things: Kids who CAN handle road trips, the Great British Baking Show, and The Good Place.

Felix: 8.5 yrs & Iris: 5.5 yrs

Orlando!

Yes, we were among the hundreds of millions of families (seemed like, anyway) that descended upon Orlando for Spring Break 2017.

We started planning this trip along with my parents many months ago, and after months of (im)patiently waiting, planning and packing, it was finally time to go. We drove down to Milwaukee the afternoon of March 26 and checked into our hotel with a chirping smoke alarm outside our room (thankfully, they put in a fresh battery before bedtime). We swam in the pool, ate dinner, and got ourselves ready for the travel day. We were in a pickle, because the hotel said no shuttles between 7 am and 9 am, and we needed a shuttle around 8:30. Scheduled an Uber for the next day.

After we feasted on the hotel breakfast the following morning, we packed up and waited. Lo and behold, we got a hotel shuttle all by ourselves at the right time. Not sure what happened exactly, but it worked out in our favor. We checked in our bags, and gave the kids their first taste of queuing for a ride - in the security line. :o) We had some time to kill at the gate, so we wandered a bit. Iris and I found a play room - and so did a friend of hers from daycare who was also on our flight! They played together until it was time to board. We flew a direct Southwest flight to MCO. Nick and the kids took a row, I sat across the aisle, making for one of my most relaxing flights. :o) This was Iris's first flight, and Felix's second flight (his first was to Mexico when he was 1.5 years old). The lovely people at Southwest gave them first flight certificates and wings. We arrived in sunny, warm Orlando mid-afternoon. We got a shuttle to our hotel, Disney's Pop Century Resort, checked in, and met my parents there. First stop after unpacking: the pool! After swimming, we had a low-key dinner at the resort and got ready for the next day.

Tuesday was Magic Kingdom day. The kids were very excited to join the throngs of people also going there that day. It was hot and sunny. The day was made extra-magical by the Pixie Dust Iris got in her hair. We rode the Barnstormer, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride (Iris said the drops on each ride "scared her private parts"), the Haunted Mansion, the carousel, had lunch at the Colombia Harbour House, took a ride on the steamboat, and waited for our Big Thunder Mountain Railroad FastPass times. Iris declined to go on it, so my mom took her to the Tiki Room show instead. Felix loved the roller coasters after some initial fear. We all joined up to go on Splash Mountain. Iris freaked out as we approached the boarding point. She DID NOT want to go on any more drops. Mom took her out of line, but then suddenly, Iris changed her mind and wanted to go on the log ride after all. They ended up being on a log a few back from us, so we couldn't see how she handled it. 😬 She was all smiles after, but that was it for rides. She had had enough of hiding in Grandma's lap on the drops. 

We caught the train back to Main Street and waited for the parade. While the rest of the family watched that, Felix and I were on a quest for his souvenir - a foam sword. We reconvened and decided it was time to go. Further delays ensued: someone cut their leg on the bus that was to take us back to the resort, meaning EMS was there for a long time, then they had to take that bus away for cleaning and we had to wait longer. Anyway, finally got back to the hotel, and went to the pool. Ordered in dinner. It was nice having adjoining rooms for the adults to chat after the kids went to bed.

What could go wrong? 

Wednesday, we went to Animal Kingdom. The park was much less crowded than Magic Kingdom. We wandered through the different areas, which were shady and cool. We went on the safari ride, pet a snake in another nature area, had lunch under the burning sun, and cooled off on the river rafting ride. The kids enjoyed earning Wilderness Explorer badges. Nick and I rode Expedition Everest while the folks watched the kids in the Boneyard playground. We hunted down some stuffed animal souvenirs and then called it a day. We took so many steps in these two days! More swimming back at the hotel. Nick and I left the kids with the folks, and headed to Disney Springs. We ate our way through the Sushi and Sashimi Pagoda at Morimoto Asia, and enjoyed Irish beverages and dancing at Raglan Road. It was a lovely night to walk around.

YES. 

Thursday, we checked out of the hotel, and all headed over to Disney Springs. We went to the Disney Store and the Lego Store, then ate lunch at Raglan Road. From there, the folks took the rental car and the kids and drove up to Weirsdale to visit Grandma Maxine and Grandpa Dennis, and we followed. We had a nice time chatting and relaxing. The kids swam three times in their pool, and met the horses. It was a clear night, and we were able to see the launch of a SpaceX rocket from 90 miles away. This was especially exciting for Nick and Iris. It was a quiet night.

And a quiet morning on Friday. The kids swam and swam again. They also went riding on one of the horses. I also gamely went for a ride in the yard. The kids liked it. We said goodbye after lunch and headed back to Orlando. We checked into our hotel for the night. The kids went swimming again. We decided to go to an "authentic German restaurant" nearby for dinner. It was quaint and kitschy, and completely deserted except for our family. A rather strange experience to be the only ones in a restaurant for over an hour. But the food was good, and the kids didn't bother anyone else. So, yay? We had a quiet night back at the hotel afterward.

Saturday, we goodbye to the folks (who were driving back), packed up and headed out. I was cranky until we got to the airport, then I settled down. Waiting in line to check our luggage took a lot longer than the security line. The kids were still excited to ride on the plane, which helped. What didn't help was that our flight out was delayed an hour because a nor'easter cancelled our inbound flight. Once they started boarding, they did it so quickly that I forgot about my phone at the charging station until we were on board the plane! Thankfully, my panic was short-lived, because the flight attendants were able to get it to me before the door closed. Whew! The kids had a tougher time with pressure in their ears on the way into Milwaukee. But we survived with no major problems, got back to our car, and treated the kids to ice cream to celebrate our return. The drive home was uneventful, and I scheduled pizza to be delivered minutes after we arrived. 

It was a great time, and we left a lot for us to do the next time we go down. We saw the license plates from 38 states, which was a new personal record. :o)

Felix: 7.5 yrs & Iris: 4.5 yrs