Ex-pat Newlyweds

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A quick update!

The entire video was filmed using a GoPro Hero HD camera. It comes with all sorts of attachments, which is how Josh was able to attach it to the end of his ski pole for some of the shots, with the help of a rubber washer.

If you’re interested, you can also find them on Amazon.

Oh hey there blog! Hi. Yeah. I know. It’s been a really long time. I’m sorry. I guess after four consecutive trips to Austria kind of put me in a schnitzel-induced coma and made writing anything really difficult. What? You find that hard to believe? Well wait until you hear what we’ve been through before you judge.

It all started in January after our return from Canada. Our last ski season was inadequate — barely existent! — so we had to make up for it. It started with a four day trip to St. Anton. It was beautiful. The first day was a bit cloudy, but what followed were two of the best days of snowboarding I’d ever had. Not only did we have beautiful snow, but we had access to six different villages and eight villages on one ski pass that cost us less per day than a single day at Grouse Mountain in Vancouver would. We made it to all of them, thanks to the White Ring.

Now, as you can imagine, all that travelling on skis or a snowboard can inspire an alpine-sized hunger, and we were in Austria! Land of great things like Wiener Schnitzel, Kaiserschmarrn and Germknödel! We refuelled heartily. And the apres! St. Anton is most definitely a place to go if you live for the Apres life.

Josh checks the map for which village we want to go visit ... and which peak.

Oh yeah... on top of all the villages and peaks we rode to, we also managed to go across state borders.

Wait. What?! Your apres beer won't cost you more than your dinner here?! AMAZING!

Josh in Lech, one of the many villages we skied to, but one of the few we actually stopped for lunch in.

Apline views.

Germknödel is a yeast dumpling covered in vanilla sauce with a plum jam centre.

Our return from St. Anton saw us stop in Cologne for a little thing called Karneval. I’m sure you remember our adventure there from last year? It was more or less the same, but without Dom, Andrew or Krister. Sad faces. But that left more Kölsch for us!

The Ampelmännchen costumes made a return. As did the litres and litres of Kölsch.

While we missed our Canadian friends, these lively German seniors were party enough! My Oma shares a tune with her friend Werner.

We were back in Berlin for a little more than a week before we boarded a bus for 13 hours to get to Kaprun with a bunch of Josh’s coworkers from Nokia. Yes. 13 hours. On a bus. Gross.

But once we were there, it was pretty great. We spent our days with coworkers turned friends and on the second day, I had easily one of the best days in the snow EVER. Josh and I are usually pretty slow in the mornings of our ski trips. Not that Sunday. We were on the lift five minutes after it opened to get in as many fresh tracks as possible. And we got LOTS. It was amazing.

The snow here is different than what we’re used to from the West Coast. I’ve never seen snow as beautiful as what we were dealing with in Austria. It was so dry, that the slightest of breeze would make the sky around you sparkle with snow crystals. It was so light, that even when you were riding over other people’s tracks, you could just surf on top of it. It was heaven. And definitely led to a massive lunch. Again — we were in Austria!

Josh had shiney new goggles. I had to use them to my advantage.

These things are great! You hang your boots up and the metal rods are heated. Over night, they dry your boots and make them toasty warm for you when you put them on in the morning.

Alpine views take 2.

Sisterhood of ridiculous socks.

Well, after that day, and another 12 hour bus ride back to Berlin, Josh still had five days of vacation from 2009 that had to be used by March 31, 2010. What else could we do but go somewhere else? After exploring our options in Switzerland, France and Italy, it was back to Austria. This time it was Mayrhofen and even though it was just two weeks after we had our powder day in Kaprun, spring skiing was in full swing.

Again, one ski pass and we went to a different mountain every day of our last four days of the 2010 season. And again, that’s pretty exhausting and we had little choice but to make sure we properly refuelled to get through the soft slush. More schnitzel! More spätzle!

That early-morning sunlight looks promising...

Who needs beach chairs at the beach when you can have them in the snow?

We made detour to the glacier cave on the Hintertux Glacier. It was incredible and our pictures from the experience mostly suck, so you're going to have to go see it for yourself before the glacier migrates and closes off the cave.

Glacier caves excite me into making stupid faces.

Kaiserschmarrn is an eggy pancake, usually doused in powdered sugar and apple sauce. It's delicious.

End of the season.

Anyway, you’d think that we’d have had enough of all of this Austrian fare, but oh-ho-ho! In February, we decided to book our Easter weekend trip. Guess where we planned to go? Oh yes. Austria. This time to Vienna to enjoy the city life of Austrians.

Vienna is beautiful. Full of white buildings and parks and history. We managed to score an incredible deal on a five-star hotel that served a breakfast buffet that included caviar. And if ever you go to Austria, you have to visit the Naschmarkt. It is a massive outdoor food market that has just as many restaurants. And it was Easter! There were Easter markets everywhere! That also included food. And we would spend all day exploring the sites like Schloss Schönbrunn, the Prater gardens and St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Also, you’re in Vienna! It would  be crime not to eat Wiener Schnitzel while you’re in Vienna.

One evening, we managed to persevere through the start of the schnitzel coma to make it to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed in Ballet at Vienna’s State Opera house. We made sure to stop in on a couple famous coffee shops along the way to help us stay up.

So, as you can see, we’ve basically eaten our way through Austria. And yes, that takes a while to recover from. Never have Opa’s words of “You guys like to eat everything” rung so true.

Josh pretty much took command of the camera, so you’re going to have to wait for him to stir from his schnitzel coma to post those.

Ok. So I do have this one. Yes! I jumped in Vienna in front of Schloss Schönbrunn, the summer palace of the Hapsburg royal family.

But the good news is I’ve awoken from my schnitzel-induced coma and have stopped neglecting our blog.

This time I swear I’ll be better about it.

Celebratory Expat Newly Weds

I know there is ski trip and another Karneval adventure to tell you about, but I’ve been very distracted.

Did you know there was a hockey game on tv last night? In Germany? At prime time? Well, our neighbours certainly did (because of us). We had a few people over, even two Americans, two Germans, a Brit with a Canadian exgirlfriend/American current girlfriend and even a Ghanaian. None of us woke up at preposterous hours to watch the other matches (I tried once but woke up in time to see the start of the next hockey game and to learn that Canada had lost to the U.S.) and a couple (you can guess which ones) had no idea what was going on, but we had a good stock of beer and salty snacks and cakes, so it didn’t matter much what was going on the screen.

Even with just four Canadians in the multi-culti mix, our nervousness was palpable and our elation unexcusable. Like the rest of Canada, we let go of our politeness  to curse Zach Parise’s last-24-seconds goal, to cheer for Sid the Kid and celebrate our victory with the anthem.

As Stephen Harper said:

Yet, we should never cast aside our pride in a country so wonderful, in a land we are so fortunate to call home, merely because the notion has sometimes been abused. We will ask the world to forgive us this uncharacteristic outburst of patriotism, of our pride, to be part of a country that is strong, confident, and tall among the nations.

We’ll apologize for ours when the hockey hangover fades.

Trash-talking treats made us laugh, but did nothing for the U.S. American team.

Just be glad you didn't have to smell our kitchen Monday morning.

I’ve inadvertently taken a sabbatical from the blog over January. I’m back. We didn’t blog about Canada — we saw so many of you there! But it was a lovely trip and I’m really touched by how many of our friends back home stay tuned to our adventures via our blog. Thank you!

I promise I’ll be better about it — besides, we have upcoming adventures to share.

But first, a few words on winter.

Another weeklong parking spot is found.

I had a herb garden once...

Germany is in crisis. The country is suffering its longest snowy period in more than 30 years. Even as I look out the window right now, snowflakes are flurrying around Arkonaplatz, being pushed around by the wind into a dizzying fall down to the ground. Some cars haven’t moved since December. My bike — oh! My bike! — I barely remember what it looks like (that’s an exaggeration … I could never forget that lovable scamp). You get the point.

It’s the kind of winter that makes you want to start every weather story with “In Soviet times…”

In not-so Soviet times, the Berlin Cathedral, the Spree Canal and the TV Tower barely showing through.

Much like Vancouver, snow scares people here too. They stay inside, work from home and — as I said — leave their cars stationed wherever they happened to have been before the roads became a scene out of Canadian b-list film (or Fargo). But, after getting over their initial shock, Berliners realised this used to be winter every year from them, and they’ve embraced it.

Among those Berliners, two Canadians made their way out to the Wannsee in the western-most limits to the city and skidded around the ice.

Josh skidding over the Wannsee.

Boats frozen into place have a rougher time with winter than the cars do.

Like most Canadian kids, Josh spent a good deal of his childhood at the hockey rink. On the farm, we had a dug out as our water source, and when it froze over in the winter, it made the perfect skating rink. My dad would get the smallest tractor on the farm and would push it all off, making way for our little blades to hit the ice when it warmed up to -20 (Celsius). I remember my brother learning to skate on the dugout, pushing a chair around until he was brave enough to go at it for himself. I remember the year that — despite it being the smallest tractor we owned — the ice just wasn’t thick enough in this one spot to support its weight, and the back wheel went crashing through.

It got towed out, no one went swimming and we kids were disappointed to learn we had to wait another two weeks for our own private skating rink to open up.

To be honest, I don’t remember the last time I hit that ice, or even the last pair of skates I owned, but that’s all changed.

After that day, we both wanted nothing more than to glide across that lake, instead of shuffling over it.

So we did it — we bought skates. And the following Sunday, we went back to the Wannsee to find it completely covered in snow. Bummer.

As Josh pouted, I pushed him onto the ice. Some German kids were playing hockey —YES! Hockey! — and had brought some shovels. Josh and I borrowed them, and expanded on a little loop already dug out. We pushed snow to make a ring, and families started to gather and push their own kids on mini blades out on to our little ring. We took turns shovelling, dusting and clearing. We stopped for little scuffers to go by. An hour later, we dropped the shovels, straightened our backs and admired our work as we skated through the “little loop” and onto “the rainbow” as the kids skating around us named it.And yes, the parents thanked us.

To be honest, all the shoveling tuckered us out a little. By the time 4:00 rolled around, we decided we had enough for the day and we plunked ourselves in the snow and made our feet get used to the sensation of being back in a shoe.

Now we just have to hope this weather sticks around long enough for us to be able to do it again.

Sabine takes a turn around the little rink in the snow.

A year ago this time, Josh and I had just got the keys to our apartment on the park. It was a massive victory, with the countdown to Christmas putting a lot of pressure on us to find something and find something quick. Those of you who have seen our place know that we were fortunate enough to not have to sacrifice our standard of living because of time constraints.

It’s safe to say we’ve fully settled in here. All of our things have their place and we have our at-home routines and places that we’re most likely to be found. We know our area and discovered neighbours, both German and non. It feels like home.

Back in the day, because that’s how long ago it already feels, Josh and I figured 18 months would be a reasonable time for our adventure. Soon after arriving, we decided that two years was probably more likely.

But the something strange happened.

We weren’t on a working holiday. We were kidding ourselves when we said this was a working holiday. We’re living here, and simply taking advantages of Germany’s ample mandated holiday time while we’re at it.

Fact: Josh still has 13 vacation days left. Yes. That’s despite us going skiing in France in March, spending Easter in Budapest and travelling to Cologne three times. That’s despite us eating gelato in Italy for two weeks and paddling through lakes in Northern Germany over the summer. That’s despite jaunts to London, Denmark and Paris in the fall. That’s despite our return to London at the beginning of this month. It’s not like we didn’t try to use our holiday time.

Why would we put a time limit on this? It wasn’t until this fall that we felt like we had settled into our life here, with a circle of friends and a group of people we’re happy to include in our plans both in and out of Berlin. I’m not ready to call this our halfway mark.

So, basically, what I’m saying is, a year later, Josh and I still really love living here. There have definitely been times when its been hard to be away from our families, but we’re taking a good therapeutic trip back to the Canadian hinterlands for Christmas.

Now please start making offerings to St. Christopher (the patron saint of travellers) so that we don’t get stuck in an airport somewhere!