What a Run

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm enjoying the day off from work, even if we're not celebrating today. Oma and Opa are coming over Saturday for a feast before we pack up and part ways. I fly back to Portland on Monday while Nicole and Lily will make their way back to Heidelberg with Oma and Opa and I'll fly back two weeks later after popping into the office for a bit.

This is a post I've been meaning to make for a while, and I guess it's a fitting farewell to Munich. Nicole and I have been marveling the amazing sights here since we arrived, even when we go for a run. When I run in Portland it's usually either through Forest Park (definitely nice, but no stunning views or anything) or along the industrial part of the waterfront (not so nice). But the routes we've been taking here have taken us past some beautiful buildings, monuments, and sights. I figured it would be fun to take you on a photo journey of our favorite route. The run is about four miles starting from our apartment, going along the Isar River, then through the English Garten, then turning around and heading for home.

First we pass Maximilianeum, which is the Bavarian Parliament building.

Then we come to the Friedensengel. (photo by Oliver Raupach)
Then we pass the Bavarian State Museum (photo by Oliver Raupach)
Then we pass maybe the coolest thing on the run, people surfing in the Isar river. Yes, surfing in the river. When I ran by a couple of weekends ago there was a big crowd of people watching and about eight surfers on each side patiently waiting their turn on the wave.

Then we enter the English Garden, which is actually bigger than Central Park. On a nice day this field is full of people soaking in the sun. (photo by Jiuguang Wang)

Our final cool sight before turning for home is the Chinese Tower, where there's also a beer garden. An oompah band plays from the second floor of the tower on weekend days. And right now there's a Christmas market set up around the tower. (photo by Frank Brenner)
Hope you enjoyed our favorite run!

One and a Half Years of Lily

Today is Lily's half birthday, or semi birthday, or anti birthday, or whatever you care to call it. I guess it's a good day to take a step back and think about what she's been up to lately and how it compares to the past. It's funny, "the past" used to mean pre-Lily to me, but now the past definitely includes Lily time too.

Lots of things are changing quickly for Lily, mostly her vocabulary and how she finds a new obsession every few days or weeks. Right now she has two obsessions - horses and dirt. I think horses will pass but dirt may be with us for a while. She found a love of horses about a week ago while we were in Vienna and there were horse-drawn carriages making their way through the streets of the old city. Whenever we'd hear hooves clicking down the street she'd say "horses, horses" (actually "husses husses") until she saw them. It eventually evolved into her saying it any time we went outside, and now she says it many times a day, and asks for the toy horses in her backpack ("dakdak"). As for dirt, first she started saying dustpan ("duhdauh"), then mama told her that the dustpan picked up dirt, then Lily started to point out dirt ("dit") on the floor that needed to be swept up. Now, she equates any cleaning activity or anything that's dirty with dirt, and actively talks about it. As an example, the hotel we were staying at last week had very friendly staff in the breakfast room who loved Lily. But since they cleaned the tables, she started pointing at them and saying "dit"... so these very nice ladies were known as dirt, and by the last day, we went to breakfast and before she saw any of them she was asking for "dit" as in "where are the dirt ladies"?

Lily is super friendly with strangers, smiling at everyone and saying "hi" and "tchuss" (German "bye"). We definitely hope she keeps up this trait, as well as continuing to say "yeah" to everything... she hasn't hit a "no" phase yet at all. There are still a couple of things we wish she'd cut out - biting (it's lessened, but she still does it when she's very frustrated) and pulling her hair and eating it. The last one just began a couple of weeks ago and while it's pretty gross we're ignoring it on the advice of a book since it's not dangerous and the theory is that it's a power grab ("you can tell me to not pull out my hair but I'm going to keep doing it because I can do whatever I want"). But we really can't complain, as she continues to be a great sleeper and eater. Knock on wood...

If I had to sum up Lily in this phase I would say she is high energy and emotional. She always wants to be on the go getting into something, and she can get pretty whiny if her every whim is not catered to. This is especially true in the car, where Nicole has to constantly give her attention in the back seat and lately has to keep her hand on Lily's leg to let her know she's paying attention. It's definitely hard for us to balance caving to her every desire versus dealing with a tantrum (they're starting) or whining, but I guess we'll continue to find our way on that one.

O Vienna

Had a wonderfully memorable Birthday trip to Vienna. I have called it my favorite city since I first visited over 15 years ago. It will continue to hold the title. Here are a few pics from the trip.

Vienna November 2010 - Nicole's Birthday Trip

As a side note, we stayed at Hotel Austria which I would highly recommend. 3 star hotel with 5 star service. I liked it so much, I am writing a review on trip advisor which I've never done.

Churches and Animals

The first month of our Germany adventure is complete. Lily sums up it best by the words she says a lot these days...oma, church, duck, horse, and tschuss (german bye). Because Bavaria is very catholic, everywhere we go to explore whether it be to the tallest mountain in Germany or a small town somehwere nearby, there is a church or a cross everywhere. Lily likes to point out churches and tell us when the church bells are ringing (it happens A LOT).

Besides being tourists, we have spent much of our time with animals. If there's a duck, deer, or goat, Lily wants food to feed them. There are some really cool zoos and animal parks around here (big recommendation for Animal Park in Poing in case it ever comes in handy).

I asked Nate what he'd want to add to this blog and he said "he's over trade shows." He's traveled a lot on this trip which has been by far the biggest bummer about all this. The up side is that we have seen a lot of Oma and we love having her here. Opa deserves a shout out too for spoiling us - thanks Dad.

Here is our past month in pictures. We are excited for this coming month. Lily and I are tagging along on his next business trip to Vienna which happens to fall on my Birthday, weekend trip with a couple of German friends that used to live in Portland and their friends, and hosting Thanksgiving with my parents.

October 2010 Germany Adventure - Month 1.

Tiny Dancer

I slowed down the tourist part of me and went to a couple playgroups I found online and through a friend this past week. One was in English (all British moms) and the other was in German. I learned that Lily doesn't like me speaking German for too long and she's all about music and dancing and playing with any doll she can get her hands on. Ever since we left Portland, she has started to really cling to dolls. She has to have her baby "Ana" with her much of the day and she sleeps with 4 dolls in her crib right now. It's pretty cute...when I put her to bed, she's holding 4 dolls in her arms. When I get her up, she's standing in her crib holding all 4 dolls. Ana is like Toy Story's Woody though...the #1 doll Lily always asks for. As a quick really cool side story, Ana is the same doll my sister was attached to at Lily's age. When we first arrived in Germany, my mom led Lily to a room full of dolls and stuffed animals (I'm talking at least 20 choices here) and Lily chose my sister's special doll.

As for Lily's other new things recently, I would say the main thing is her ability to now either lead a game or order us around. She will now tell me where to sit and when to get up, asks (who am I kidding, orders) me to spin around and then she spins kinda like the first signs of a simon says. I am more amazed by how much she understands than by how much she's talking at this point. It's cool to hear her put 2 words together once in a while but wow, I could be talking to Nate about some pigtails that look like horns in passing and Lily will suddenly start making the horn sound with her mouth.

No question Lily loves to dance. Here's her first time listening to music on head phones.




We did have a perfect fall day so I had to take her to Olympic park and see the view from the tower.

At the German speaking playgroup. Lily's first attempt at painting. She was more interested in checking herself out in the mirror off to the side.

A nice walk along the Isar river. I love this shot because I asked Lily to smile for the camera and this is what she gave me.

Day Trippin

As of this coming Thursday I'll have been in Munich for a month. We're pretty settled into our routines at this point, but it seems we're still settling into our apartment. I'm writing this from our living room which is a bit of a jumble. When we arrived it had a couch, two normal chairs, two weird chairs that are like pool deck chairs but on rockers, and a hammock (don't really know why there's a hammock in the living room, but it's here). Since then we have brought in the patio table and chairs to use as a dining table (the huge dining room table is in Lily's room and is too big to move it out) and a futon which is about four feet from the TV which is where it needs to be since the TV screen is literally the size of my laptop screen. We don't have any real complaints, it's just quirky.

Our routines are basically this. On weekdays I hop on the train and head to work, Nicole and Lily do some kind of touristy outing in the morning then come home for lunch and naptime, then out for errands or a short jaunt. I usually come home a bit early because I have evening phone meetings a couple of nights a week. Since I'm heading to an office Nicole hasn't seen and she and Lily are off visiting places I've never seen, it kind of feels like we're living dual lives here, but at least we have weekends to share some good experiences. And Nicole and Lily are planning on coming out to the office for lunch one day this week, so that should be fun.

For weekend days we get out of the city and do day trips as much as we can. We've done this twice now, and I'll give you our photo tour...

First we went to a strange amusement park in Wolfratshausen called Marchenwald. It's centered around the fairy tales of the brothers Grimm, and there are a bunch of animatronic sets around the park to recount the (oddly morbid and disturbing) tales. There were also a bunch of random rides, most of which Lily could do, a few of which she loved.

Here she is riding the miniature train through the forest. Three notes: 1) the "what the heck is going on here" look on her face. This would be a theme for the day. 2) the pictures from this day were shot on my cell phone, so the quality isn't so good. 3) we got there early and it was cold, so we had the place almost to ourselves for a while.

She LOVED these cars, we probably rode this six times.
I don't know why I find this one so hilarious, but I do.


After the park we drove over to Chiemsee (see = lake), and the sun came out so we could see foothills of the Austrian Alps as we drove. We also walked around a quaint town next to the lake called Prien. This pic is in the town square.


Ok, so that was last weekend... this weekend we started Saturday at an animal park, sort of an overgrown petting zoo. Lily enjoyed checking out the different animals, and she said afterwards that "ee-aw" was her favorite - the donkey. Here are a couple of shots from there.

Then we were going to drive to Tergensee but wanted to give Lily an opportunity for a longer nap plus the weather wasn't great so we drove down into Austria. The clouds opened up a bit and the scenery was amazing. We were driving along a long lake with sort of rolling hills/mountains on the other side, really beautiful. On the way back to Munich we stopped in what our book said was possibly the most prototypical Bavarian town, Neubeuern. A nice town square with one lane town gates and a castle on the cliff above the town. We hung out in the town center for a while admiring the flower boxes and murals painted on the buildings. We managed to get a nice self-pic too.

Then we noticed that the small statue on the water fountain at the center of town had a little quirk. Here he is.

I'll leave you with that one. Until next time...

Snack Trap

After our first full week in Germany, I know I have learned a lot but there is so much more to learn that I have to take the time and stop and look back to see how far I've come already. All I'm doing is looking forward on what else I want to figure out. The snack trap has turned out to be a great conversation starter with 2 moms so far. Apparently, they are not that common here; I should start an import business. The playgrounds here are pretty much all based in sand so you'll see the little kids wearing what look like oversized fishing overalls. As far as shopping goes here, I'm still overwhelmed by all the shopping options from farmers stands at street corners (imagine a fruit stand every few blocks on 23rd street), organic only stores, bigger USA size stores with organic sections, and then those cute little bakeries and delis that are tough to pass without stopping in to take a peek (great place to practice German).

Nate has had to work a lot this week with evening calls with the US, and he's off to Copenhagen for 4 days next week. We haven't had as much family time together as we're used to and it shows in just how clingy Lily is to me. It would be nice for her to want to play with only Daddy for a while so I can just take a break even if I'm in the same room but as with all things with little ones, this too shall pass. Lily and I have been tourists in the morning and more like locals in the late afternoon with going to parks and running errands. A friend asked me what my favorite thing about living in Munich is so far and at this point, it has to be the touristy adventures Lily and I have taken. I love that even I can go explore something new which is usually something really old around here. My biggest challenge is how lonely I already feel at times. The people here are much more reserved at first so I just have to be patient as well as gain more confidence in my German speaking abilities.

Here are a few pics from this past week

At the English Gardens (HUGE urban park with of course beer gardens mixed in)

In the kids section of the German museum, music part with oversized instruments.
At the Munich zoo which feels more like an open preserve.
Frauenkirche tower in the background
Here's a cute little video of Lily and a Chimpanzee.