Frohe Weinachten!

Merry Christmas to all from Nuremberg! I have a special Christmas story to share with you all...

Unable to sleep on Christmas Eve, Mae stumbled to the insanely overpriced pay phone in her hotel lobby to call home and cry about missing her mom and dad. It helped ease the pain a bit, and she was happy for the seven hour time difference so she wasn't waking up her folks in the middle of the night.

When she and Matt awoke to Christmas morning a few short hours later, they decided to attend services at the extremely old cathedral in town. This only lasted about a half hour for Mae and Matt, as it was standing room only and the charm of an all-German Catholic service wore off quickly for our English-speaking Unitarians. But they were glad they had gone anyway. When they returned to the hotel, they took a long winter's nap and awoke to a Christmas feast. Not having a refrigerator in their room and knowing everything wuold be closed for Christmas, they had purchased some food at the Christmas market the day before that the hoped would keep - a bounty of bread, cheese, olives, clementines, and fruitcake. And with no table in their budget (but wonderful) hotel room, they decided to spread a towel over the bed and have a European Christmas picnic. With no music to speak of, Mae turned up her ipod full volume and played some Christmas music through the headphones so that, if they sat close enough, they could enjoy the tunes together. They had a lovely Christmas feast and look forward to an upcoming dessert of the Nutella-coated nuts and gingerbread still awaiting them back at the hotel.

After the feast, Mae and Matt headed to the Nuremberg Opera House to see what was happening. They arrived fifteen minutes before the start of the opera Benvenuto Cellini, and they found a nice woman selling box seats very cheaply. They felt like superstars in their box seats, at the opera on Christmas Day, even though they were clad only in modest jeans and tees. The opera turned out to be the craziest thing either had ever seen, and neither has a clue what it was about. Italian with German subtitles, and very modern. Who knows? But the spectacle was nice.

And now they are at the local internet cafe, telling stories and calling home once again. They have had a very special kind of holiday, and they look forward to moving on to Munich tomorrow for a few more days of German fun before Italy comes calling....

(Don't know why, but I really wanted to tell that in 3rd person! Forgive me.)

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Christmas Eve in Bavaria!

Well, we made it safely and on time into Nuremberg on Monday morning. We were absolutely determined to stay awake until at least 8pm to try to get over jet lag as fast as possible and get into the new time zone. We fell asleep at 2pm! The best laid plans.... The good news is that we were so exhausted that we did not have the common problem of waking up at 10pm, wired and ready to go. No, not us! Not even 3am. No, not even 9am. That's right, ladies and gents, we slept until 1pm the next day - a solid 23 hours! And now we feel great and are totally on German time.

It is Christmas Eve now and we are about to visit the Nuremberg Christkindle Market for the last time before it closes later today. It is pretty magical, although I have to say, it is doing its best to break my newly vegetarian self with all the sausage everywhere! Matt is in heaven. So far I have held out by eating tons of cheese, bread, and potatoes, which is just fine by me. Oh, and gingerbread! We are going to stock up on olives, cheese, and wine so we can have Christmas dinner in our hotel room tomorrow. It is sad to be away from our families, but we are trying to make the most of it by eating and drinking as much as possible!

I will sign off now so I can go squeeze as much Christmas Eve joy out of Nuremberg as time will allow, but I will write again later to let you know how Christmas in Germany ends up.... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Setting Sail!

We leave in about 12 hours for Nuremburg and are crossing our fingers that all our flights are safe and on time, given the wintry weather we've been having here in Minnesota. We had a great holiday celebration with Layla and Matty tonight at their place. Here are some pics of the good times.... (As you can see, I did indeed chop off all my hair yesterday! I think it was about 12 inches that were donated to Locks of Love. The new 'do is going to feel great in India!)

Here goes nothin'...

Okay, so this is my first official post. I decided to set up this blog in case any of my friends or family want to follow my overseas adventures. We leave home tomorrow for Minneapolis, where we'll stay with Layla and Matt before flying off to Germany (Nuremberg) on Sunday. Altogether, we'll spend five weeks traipsing around Nuremberg, Venice, Rome, Tuscany, Lyon, and Paris. From there, Matt will head back to the states and I will go on to India for four months. Three of those months will be spent at the Child Haven International orphanage in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), and the last month will be spent at the Saccidananda Ashram in Tannirpalli (Tamil Nadu). Both are in south India and will be hot hot hot! Good thing I'm from Florida.

My internet access will be very limited through these next five-plus months, so I will probably be unable to send a lot of personal emails. However, I will take as many photos as I can of my journeys to post here, and I will also do my best to offer weekly updates. If anyone wants to email me and doesn't mind that I may not be able to respond, I would be grateful to hear from you!

Well, I have about a million things to do in these next twenty-four hours before we leave the house. Very stressful! I have to try to think of everything that could possibly come up between now and June 1. Yikes. I will leave you with a few more wedding pics, because they are still so new to me, and also because all the beautiful hair on my head will be gone as of tomorrow evening, sent away to Locks of Love. So these are for posterity....

Okay, this is my test run. I have never blogged before, so I am getting a feel for all of this. Let's see how it looks...