November Break 2013 - London

I can barely believe the November break has already come and gone. For those of you that followed this blog since the beginning, you know the November break has always brought bad luck for us, well mostly bad health luck for Kev. You can refresh your memory here and here. Good news on the November curse, no health problems during the trip! The trip was, however, dampened with a decent amount of rain, but that is expected in London! I was lucky to see a familiar face and a great friend from University because she and her husband had recently moved there for jobs.

In three full days touring London, I feel as if we just scratched the surface of the city. It is an absolutely massive city with so much to do. We probably wouldn't have seen nearly as much either, if we didn't have Megan and John to tour us about here and there.

In our short vacation to London, we did the following:

• Double-Decker Bus Tour
• Saw the main sights: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Picadilly Circus, etc.
• Saw the World's Longest Running Show: Agathe Christie's the Mousetrap. The play is a murder mystery on it's 60th Anniversary and I won't dare break the oath I took at the end by telling you "whodunit." The theatre (to us) was the epitome of an old theatre experience, uneven floors, steep staircases, uncomfortable seats, and full of charm! We loved it. Photos in the theatre were prohibited, but you can see a virtual tour of it here.
• Saw John's office for his new job
• Ate lots of pub food and pot pies. Whoever says English food is bland doesn't know what they're talking about. The English breakfast is killer, the pub burgers are way better than anything I've had in Germany, and the pot pie options are endless. Kev's favorite was the basic chicken pot pie and I enjoyed the mixed fish pie. Everything is served with mashed potatoes and mushy peas, of course!
• Kev and I decided we definitely aren't museum people after we strolled through the massive Victoria and Albert Museum. Beautiful though.
• Tasted a bunch of different beers on a mini-pub crawl with Meg and John. I swear there is a pub on every corner and at least two in between. Very few dance clubs, overload of pubs, also known as my heaven.
• Saw Notting Hill and the famous Portobello Market.
• Went to Regent Street for the famous "switching-on" of the Christmas Lights. Decided to avoid the crowds on the street and headed for a pub instead. The Christmas build-up is about 2 months long as the stores reap a massive percentage of their annual profits during this time. Makes sense when you don't have Thanksgiving to celebrate, I suppose!
• Mistakenly thought we saw Barbara Streisand at one of the pubs downtown. We sent the usually-willing John for a picture with her before we found out we were wrong. 
• Saw the London Eye and Tower Bridge at night, which was gorgeous all lit up.

That's about our trip in a nut-shell! I'll let the photos do the rest of the explaining.

Big Ben

Big Ben/London Eye

Westminster Abbey

Remembrance Weekend of both World Wars

One of the Oldest Churches in London

Pot Pies from the Pieminister Restaurant 

The famous Harrod's Department Store

Tower Bridge view standing on the London Bridge

Rest houses for the cab drivers

before the Remembrance Weekend parade

Notting Hill

Notting Hill

Old Cameras at the Portobello Market

Old boxing gloves at the Portobello Market

Meg sifting through the Portobello Market

Notting Hill

London Eye

Kev and I in front of Big Ben

Meg and I in front of Tower Bridge

Hofbräuhaus Hamburg

Our crew that visited us came during the time of Oktoberfest, but we weren't planning on making the trek to Munich for the festivities. Shocking, I know. However, Kev and I still wanted to be able to give them a taste of Oktoberfest since it is a large part of the German culture. So one of the nights, we headed on over to Hamburg's Hofbräuhaus for dinner. The girls and I had tried to go early on in their trip, but there was no getting a seat without a reservation. 

packed house!

The Hofbräuhaus serves Bavarian cuisine and the beers are served in the large liter-sized steins you would find at Oktoberfest. Boso, Graham (I think), and I had frankfurters (hotdogs) with sauerkraut, Alyssa and Nicky had Weisswurst (white sausage) with a pretzel and sweet mustard, and Kev had Schnitzel with Pommes (french fries). 

our frankfurters with sauerkraut

In addition to the food and beer, the servers wear the authentic lederhosen, as do some of the guests! There is a live band playing Bavarian music, much of which the diners/drinkers sing along and dance to. The dance floor was full and the tables were being utilized as well for dancing. I had came to the Hofbräuhaus once last year on a slower night, so this was my first time seeing it in true action and I loved every bit of it. 

dancing on our table

My phone deleted the video I took of our night at the Hofbräuhaus, so here is one via Youtube that gives you a picture of what our night was like! Just imagine everyone dancing on their tables as well.

Before I go, I'll leave you with this gem of a photo. By far my favorite from the night and I'm thinking they are ready for their second stein.

Tschüss!!

I'm a pretty lucky chick!

Sorry once again about the lack of updates, but I'll catch you all up now! Starting with our trip to Austria!

The trip was absolutely amazing. We had good, sunny, weather most of the time and with the Scherenbergs help, were able to navigate Kitzbuhel as if we were locals! We have constantly said since the trip how different it would have been without them. From recomendations from Bea and Oli before we left to Bärbel and Volker helping us navigate the slopes and find the best restaurants, we were able to have a really great vacation. We ended up purchasing a 4-day slope pass and made the most of it! I struggled a bit on the slopes but thanks to patience from Bärbel (a former ski instructor!) and Kev, I was able to make it down each run. I took the last day off to relax and let Kev run around with Shannon and John for some adventures.

The 4 of us with the Scherenbergs

One of my favorite parts of the ski vacay was heading to the apres ski pub, the Londoner. This pub is literally meant for right after the slopes, as people come in with their ski boots on and get wild for a couple of hours. There is a live band until about 7:00 or 7:30 and after that, the pub clears pretty quick. We couldn't pass up on the opportunity to drink out of the 2 Liter "Das Boot" our first night there!

We also dove right in to the Austrian food and enjoyed every bit of it. From the schnitzel and cordon bleu to the dumplings and different soups, we were once again thankful for the Scherenberg's recommendations of food choices! Yum!!

My "Tris": spinach dumpling, cheese dumpling, and a big noodle with filling

Downtown Kitzbuhel

We stayed on the 2nd floor!

 We had a tentative plan to head back to Hamburg on Friday, but decided to instead take advantage of the fact that we were in Austria and went to Salzburg for a night. We enjoyed some more awesome food, a spectacular view from the top of the Festung Hohensalzburg, and had a pretty wild night bar hopping our way around. We didn't expect to be on the road by 8 a.m. Saturday (especially after a bit of a late night!) but after getting woken up by the fire alarms at 7 a.m. we hit the road and were happy to get back to Hamburg in the late afternoon!

Mozart lived here once



Festung Hohensalzburg

View from Festung Hohensalzburg

She went to the bigger size next, promise

slightly drunk and really pumped about potato salad

We've been pretty busy since being back from the trip as well! The Alster downtown froze solid enough for people to skate on it, so Kev had a couple promotions down there. After a 3-on-3 promotion, we stayed to skate a bit and take in Hamburgs view from the Alster. It was pretty insane down there, as they expected over a million people to come skate during the 3 day time.

so many people walking/skating on the Alster!

Kev has also since had his Birthday. He had a game on his Birthday so we and the Curry's had a little dinner for him here on Wednesday. He got a couple cards and small gifts from some fans, which was pretty neat. And as part of his gift, when we get back to Markham, we'll be renting a Corvette or 1 of a few other "exotic imports" for a day. I think I may be more excited about that one than he is!

Kev's Birthday "cake"

Last weekend, we had a bridal shower/bachelorette party for one of the girls (Christina) on the team that is getting married this summer. It is always great to get all the chicks together outside of games and it was a blast. Christina has 3 friends from home in town also, so it was awesome that they could be a part of it! We learned a German bachelorette party tradition which involved taking shots so we were happy to participate.

Christina's throne, wishing well, and panty basket

Yesterday was a pretty scary day at work! While at the zoo, Hans was running, tripped and hit his mouth pretty hard on a rock. The poor little guy ended up having to get surgery last night on the upper part of his teeth/mouth and a few stiches in both lips. It was pretty scary, but thankfully it is overall pretty minor and since he's so young, not with any permanent teeth! I haven't seen him since he left the zoo headed to the hospital, but I'm sure he will look pretty cute without those 2 front teeth.

As for hockey, the Freezers won the last two games! Hopefully this slump is over. Kev has a game in Koln tonight and leaves again Thursday for a 5 day/3 game road trip. Bring on some W's guys.

Personally, I had been in a bit of a lazy funk lately (hence no blog posts!). I had been sort of just going through the motions, lazy with workouts, and just a bit of a complainer! After getting out for a nice long run today, I was able to come to a pretty awesome realization. By the time we go home, I'll have lived in Germany (and took the step of moving in with Kevin!), learned some German, been to Paris, met some amazing chicks from the team, been to 3 different concerts (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Toby Keith, and as of tomorrow, 3 Doors Down), been to Austria and skied in a world known resort, and met one of the most unbelieveable families I ever have (the Scherenbergs). And thats only been in 6 months, we have 2 left! Not to mention next year! So as the title of this post says, today I realized... I'm a pretty lucky chick!! Tschüss!