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

Happy 2013!

I celebrated my first German New Year two years ago in Hannover. I have since then tried to explain what it entails to those that haven't seen how the Europeans bring in the New Year. Complete chaos is an ok description. But nothing does it justice. There are fireworks going off on every single street, not done by the city, but by the local citizens. With fireworks bought the week before from every convenience and grocery store in town. It's not a cheesy short 20 minutes of fireworks, either. Nope, they go on sporadically all day on New Years Eve, picking up after dark and concluding with an hour long finale at midnight. Yes, an hour of what you get excited about for the 5 minute finale on Canada Day or the 4th of July back home.

I know what you're thinking, drunk people lighting off fireworks? That sounds pretty dangerous! Your damn right it's dangerous, we saw at least two times Monday night where groups of walkers had a misfire shot in their direction. I don't disagree that it is dangerous, but it is also a helluva lot of fun. This year, we went to a beer hall right on the Hamburg harbor. And it was my favorite New Years in Germany thus far. Imagine: along with the fireworks, boats are everywhere in the water, lit up, and constantly honking their horns.

Actually, don't imagine it, just watch this video and get a taste of bringing in the New Year German style: (the excitement over the New Year results in a pretty shaky video).

And it's already the 4th of January! I firmly believe that silly quote, "Time flies when you're having fun!" We have been having a lot of fun lately and I feel like if I blink, time will cruise by faster than Kev does on the ice. We had visitors in town for two weeks and it felt more like only a few days. Man, did we keep them busy with Christmas plans, hockey games, New Years celebrating, touring Hamburg, and they even squeezed in a three day trip to Salzburg, Austria. If the holidays weren't enough to celebrate, Doughboy popped the big question in Salzburg so we got to cheers to an engagement as well.


The team has been doing really great lately. They are currently in 4th in the standings and sitting only a few points out of first. We have good news personally with hockey, too. It was made public recently that Kev has re-signed for another year here. Hamburg will continue to be our hockey home and we are incredibly happy about it. For most of you back home, the work day is almost over, so have a good weekend! Tschüss!!

Wrapped-up; First DEL Season

Well, it's over. The hockey season that is. Kev's team lost on Friday to end the first round of playoffs 4 games to 1. You never want to end on a loss, but the team has a lot to be happy about, having a sigificant improvement from last season's 11th place finish. As for Kev, he is happy about how his first season in the DEL went and is excited to work his bum off this summer in preparation for next season. After participating in a 4-day-drink-your-face-off "bender," it won't be too long before he is back to working out hard again! Since I participated in a bit of a bender myselft, I'm excited to start working hard on the summer bod again! Especially since I decided to run the Hamburg marathon next year (my first one!), so I want to have a great training year for that! To wrap up the season, we have the Freezer team party on Saturday, and then it won't be too long till we have to say our goodbyes. This is my first season with Kev and I've definitely formed my own bonds here, so there will be some difficult goodbyes for the both of us!

We intend to stay in Hamburg until the end of the month. That way, I can continue to work a bit longer, and we can have even more time to explore parts of Hamburg we haven't yet gone to. I have a bit more free time as well, since after my last set of lectures ended, I am finished with the German course for the year. We also have plans to drive on over to Amsterdam for a few days to cross out yet another city on our travel bucket-list.

Kev has re-attempted the bourbon and brown sugar salmon recipe and came through with some amazing results. Shannon and I left him and John to fend for themselves in the kitchen last night, and boy were we impressed! Salmon, oven-baked asparagus, and couscous cooked in a yummy chicken broth. Ok, we may have had to give them advice here and there, but they did some serious work! You all must try the salmon at home, so good!

Looks good, doesn't it!?

 

Bourbon and Brown-Sugar Salmon

2 salmon filets
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. Butter
1/4 packed brown sugar
1/4 Bourbon

Directions:
Rinse salmon fillets, pat dry, season with salt and pepper.
*Melt butter over medium heat until it foams. When the foaming has subsided, stir in brown sugar until a sauce is formed. If sauce is too thick, add more butter. Cook salmon fillets in brown sugar/butter sauce for 3-4 minutes, flip the salmon, and pour the bourbon on the salmon. Cook for another 4-6 minutes until salmon is done (time varies based on thickness). Serve and pour remaining sauce over salmon (it carmelized and was so good!).

*Recipe itself is from Esquire's Eat Like a Man Cookbook, but I had Kev slightly adapt it in the way it worked for him. He made a point to me that the butter "needs to be at a perfect temperature." I can't help but laugh a little when he says that, but whatever works for him, as long as the fire alarm stays off!

Have a great Hump Day! Tschüss!

Hans is better!!

Since I last wrote and told you about the fall Hans had, there has been another long hospital trip for the little guy. He was able to come home Tuesday after his surgery Monday night. But after the surgery, he was hurting pretty bad and had a hard time eating and drinking, so went back to the hospital on Wednesday from being so dehydrated. After being in the hospital since Wednesday getting infusions for food and drink, he started eating and drinking on his own Friday and was able to come home today! His Oma (or Bärbel as you might know from the Austria post) came into town for the end of the week to be able to spend time with him in the hospital. This meant a couple of long days there for me with Ida, but I was happy to help out! I can't imagine how scary it was for them to have their 3 year old in the hospital! And Ida and I got to know each other even better in the mean time and now she eats for me with no problems. We did a little victory dance together when Hans and Bea pulled into the driveway this afternoon. He was definitely back to his normal, cheerful self!

Kev and I went to another concert on Wednesday night! 3 Doors Down was playing with Seether and a band we had never heard of, Prime Circle. We were super impressed with Prime Circle and 3 Doors Down, but not so much with Seether.

And big news! Kev has finally scored his first goal in the DEL! He had a goal during Friday night's game. It was a little bittersweet since it came with a team loss, but still exciting! The guys won today against Straubing, and have one more game on Tuesday before they come home from this long roadtrip. It is really crazy that there are only FIVE games left in the regular season. They are currently tied for 6th place, so hopefully they can finish out these last few games strong, and secure a spot in the playoffs! (top 8 make playoffs)

I just got home from a "potluck" at one of the girl's places. It really is great to get everyone together and hopefully we can get a few more of these gatherings in before the season is over! It is just flying by! Happy Sunday, Tschüss!

I know I know... I'm due for an update!

Sorry that I have been brutal with this blog this month! After the New Years hangover wore off, we just weren't up to a whole lot so I didn't want to bore you with lame updates! And then, I just got a bit out of the blogging habit after that. But I'm back! And now there is lots of time to recap. So I'll start from the beginning... of the new year.

The New Year's party was a complete wasted fest as suspected. The team had rented out the entire bottom half of a restaurant, which was really nice and we all just stayed there the whole night. I ended up taking zero pictures but Shannon has an entire camera full of some really embarassing ones. After having been in Hannover for New Year's last year, I knew a little of what to expect with the midnight fireworks, but it was even more insane by us this year. The air was so foggy with firework smoke and so loud with the bangs that it really did feel as if we were in a bit of a war zone! It's such a cool thing that they do that here. Dangerous! But cool.

Like I said before, after New Years, it was pretty boring around this place, we didn't get up to a whole lot. One of Kevin's best buddies and old teammate from Hannover, DJ Jelitto and his fiance came up for a day trip the week after New Years. It worked out perfect too that it just happened to fall on one of my days off. We go to show them a bit around downtown Hamburg and made them dinner before they were on the road again back to Hannover. A short trip, but a pretty awesome one... at least we thought so!

We do have a bit of big news to share. We are coming back to Hamburg next year! The Freezers have picked up the option to have Kevin back next year and we couldn't be happier! We've known this for a little while, but it was finally made public last week. Complete with a cheesy photo in the newspaper of Kev and I by the Alster. I will also continue working for the Scherenbergs next year which I am really excited about! 

Speaking of hockey, the team is currently in 5th place in the league. More importantly, what I know all of you are dying to hear about... it was "ladies' night" at the game this past Friday. The male strippers were not nearly as entertaining as the chicks from men's night, but it was still pretty funny to see. When the guys were in the stands during intermission, I actually felt a bit akward and embarrassed for them as they were walking aimlessly without shirts trying to find women to dance with. Still, the on ice lap dance was pretty great, especially when one of the dancers pulled his undies just low enough to show a little crack! I forgot my phone that game and my camera battery was dead so I don't have anything good of my own to show of that night. Everything below is from the Freeers facebook page!

Kev has a game in Berlin today and I actually have to get going because Shannon and I are leaving in about 15 minutes to go to it. We are headed to the game and then spending the night there with the guys to explore Berlin tomorrow for their day off. I'll have a lot to write about then! And my camera battery is charging now, so I'll finally be taking some pictures of my own again! Hopefully, when we come back, Kevin will be able to call himself an uncle. His brother Matt and his wife, Shannon, are due to have their baby any time now!Enjoy your Sunday! Tschüss!

All I want for Christmas... is the German language to be easier!

Kevin had an article in the monthly arena magazine this past month. After sending some home for family members, I thought I would try to translate it without typing it all into a translation website. Not only for our family to actually be able to read it, but also because I thought it would be good practice for me! Well, I'm more than 2 hours into my process and I only have a bit over 1/3 of it done. As much as my German improves with my class and spending time with Hans, this attempt was quite the awakening that I am still extremely raw and basic. I don't even know more than one tense to speak in! Not to mention that there are so many different ways to use a word and specific ways to have a saying. I'll keep trying for everyone but in the meantime.. here are some photos of the article!

 

I have already been able to attend 2 Christmas parties... in addition to the markets, so we are still feeling festive over here. Over a week ago, we had the team's party with all of the sponsors, team management, players, wives/gfs, and even some fans I think. It was at a beautiful hotel near the Reeperbahn and was such a great time! It started with speeches by the head of the fan club and some of the management (which they translated in English also so we knew what was going on). The speeches were all extremely nice and everyone seems very proud and supportive of the team. They had an amazing spread of food and after the speeches were done, the drinking began! Being a "work" party, I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was so much fun and even a little wild!

Kevin's back-up career to hockey: a rockstar

Last night, I went to one of the other girls, houses for a Christmas party/Cookie exchange. Her home was beautifully decorated and there was a great spread of food and wine for us all. We had a gift exchange and all in all a great time together! Her husband, Serge, made an appearance to serve us our champagne.

what a trooper!

Our food and cookie spread at the end of the night

I'm by myself tonight since the boys are playing in Berlin. They are currently in a 3-way tie for 4th place in the league. The standings are pretty close, but hopefully we get a big W tonight! We have a pretty busy rest of the week coming up as well also! Kevin leaves Thursday for his game on Friday against Mannheim. Saturday morning, we have a Christmas Eve skate/potluck with the rest of the players and families. Saturday night we are having another couple over for dinner and drinks. Sunday is Christmas (holy moly, already!!) and we are headed over to the Scherenbergs for brunch before Kev's practice that aftenoon. And the day after Christmas, the guys have a home game. Busy busy! I still have a tiny bit of Christmas shopping left and lots of cooking and baking to do! The Christmas markets close on Friday as well, so I'm obviously dying to get down there at least once more before they close. I don't know what I'm going to do without them when January rolls around! Anyway, have a great week everyone, tschüss!

And since I may not blog again this week,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

FROHE WEIHNACHTEN!

Hamburg Christmas Markets

There hasn't been a whole lot going on here other than staying pretty busy with work and class for me, hockey for Kev, and some Christmas shopping here and there for the both of us.We have all of our Christmas decorations up in the living room and Kev is already sick of coming home to Christmas music playing (since I found a few online radio stations!!). Since there hasn't been too much excitement here, I figured this was the perfect time to tell you all about the Hamburg Weihnachtsmarkts. Especially since I am so in love and obsessed with them! (Lucky for me, I get to walk through one every time I go to class and usually grab lunch there on my way back afterwards).We had a bit of a girls night just over a week ago and all headed down to the Market in front of the Town Hall for some Gluhwein.

obviously not my camera!

The Christmas markets are opened to celebrate the 4 weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas. They are usually held in a town square and sell food, drinks, and different jewelry and seasonal items. They also usually have some sort of carousel or a Christmas scene in place for children. The two most popular stalls are the Bratwurst stalls and Gluhwein stalls. Gluhwein is a mulled red wine served warm. It is spiced with cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, citrus, and sugar. If one is really feeling festive, you can get a shot of brandy or rum into your Gluhwein! And for those that don't like wine or beer, but still want the buzz, there is always the option of hot chocolate with rum, Baileys, Amaretto, or a mint liquor.

 

A few of the girls that have lived in other countries or German cities because of hockey said that they thought Hamburg's main Christmas market was the most beautiful. In and around Hamburg, there are a total of 33 different markets! The one in front of town hall is the largest and most touristy (it tends to be shoulder-to-shoulder every night!). Kev and I have wandered over to a few of the other markets, and even though some are very small, they all have similar stalls (one even had a small ice rink for kids!). Hamburg's main market has about 4 or 5 Gluhwein stands, a few bratwurst stands, and the other food available ranges from crepes, to roasted nuts, to bakers having different cookies and cakes on hand! I even had fried cauliflower and chocolate covered bananas at one market! We haven't had the greatest weather this past week to really enjoy them (we have snow in Hamburg!) but I plan to get down there a few more times before they close on the 23rd!

Perhaps, the neatest thing about the town square's market is that 3 times a day, Santa Clause flys over the market and tells a story. And this is not some fake Santa Clause! A real man hops into his sleigh and trusts a cable to carry them and his 4 reindeer and Cloud lady across the Market. It is a beautiful thing to see at night!

It seems like even when we are not at the Christmas Markets, downtown is still very festive. Germans love Christmas! Which is great because it puts me in the such a festive holiday spirit! We have the team's Christmas party tonight (hopefully we'll also be celebrating a win this afternoon, go Freezers!), the girls are having a Christmas party next week, and we have made plans with the Scherenbergs to have brunch at their place on Christmas day (early since Kev has an afternoon practice). So, lots of holiday spirit around this city and apartment! I hope everyone is having a good holiday season back home! We miss you all! Tschüss!

one of the buildings downtown

Thanks to the Curry's I'm able to blog again!

I was in the middle of a blog post Friday night when our internet cut out and we've been without it since! After a few days without internet, it's easy to see how much we depend on it! Since all of our english TV-watching capabilities depend on the internet, we've been pretty lost and only accessing BBC World News(Gale and I were pretty stir-crazy after about 15 minutes of that). Anyway, bear with this post seeing as half of it was written Friday and the other half tonight (and thank goodness for Shannon and John not only feeding us tacos tonight but letting us steal their internet too!).

 We had an absolutey fantastic American Thanksgiving here. I am pretty lucky because out of everyone celebrating I was the only American. We had 3 Canadians and 4 Germans. Gale and I spent the whole morning cooking a feast of Turkey, mashed potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, brown sugared carrots, stuffing, deviled eggs, pumpkin pie, and chocolate chip cookie pie. The Scherenbergs came over and had their first Thanksgiving meal! Bea made an "apfelkuchen" for the occasion, an apple cake. We drank wine, feasted, and even got to see the Packers go 11-0. I think that the Scherenbergs had a great time (Hans enjoyed watching a slide show of Kevin's hockey pictures from Bowling Green) and I really appreciated everyone making my Thanksgiving feel like a celebration like home!

everyone  and our great meal!

all of our desserts, can you tell which is which?

Today (Friday), Horst and |Gale rented a car and went down to Augsburg to watch Kev's game. The team won which moved them into 1st place in the league! They are all staying in the same hotel in Munich which means I was free to eat all the leftover Thanksgiving food with no one here to stop me. Horst and Gale said that the Augsburg fans were crazy throwing lighters and cups onto the ice when they disagreed with the calls (not to mention the police with guns patrolling the freezing open walled rink) What an adventure for them!

Wednesday, we went to Hamburg's Modeleisenbahn Miniatur Wunderland. Kevin and I have been looking forward to going to this for quite some time! The Miniatur Wunderland is the world's largest model railway. It covers 1,150 square meters which took over a half million hours of labor. Most of the constructions were made from scratch. They say that most of their scenes are imaginary, but based on actual locations and they tried to replicate those the best they could. The exhibit has over 800 model trains, 300,000 lights, and 200,000 tiny human figurines. This place was spectacular and they did an amazing job replicatng the areas. We started by walking into Hamburg's area where we first saw Imtech Arena, home of the Hamburg HSV soccer team. The pictures we have don't do the place justice, but hopefully you will all be able to get an idea of how much detailing went into the model railway!

Soccer stadium and its parking lot

quite the spot on replica!

We then moved on to see Hamburg's landing pier for the ports, the Hauptbahnhof (Hamburg's main train station), and Hafencity complete with canals (which is where the Wunderland is located).

an amazing replica of the boat we took when we went to the Lion King Musical

Landing Ports

Hauptbahnhof

Hafencity

A Schmidt Truck!

After seeing Hamburg we went across the room to see America! In the America section, we saw Key West, Miami, Las Vegas, Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, and part of Yosemite National Park. Every 10 or so minutes, they entire exhibit would turn from day until night and seeing the Las Vegas strip at night was pretty neat.

Las Vegas

Vegas strip at night

They even had drive-in movies!!

We moved into the next room to see Scandanavia where we saw the Northeast Sea where model boats would actually come in and dock and the it even had a 4 centimeter tidal range for high and low tide. We saw Harz which had a festival going on complete with a Large Ferris Wheel with approximately 30,000 lights. We moved from there to Knuffingen where we saw a train bridge connecting to Austria. In Austria, we were able to see an amazing ski hill with lifts which looked so real when they turned off the lights for night time.

Harz festival

Skiing in Austria!

We then moved onto the final room of the exhibit which had Switzerland and the Hamburg Airport. Switzerland is the most elaborate of all the areas and reached from the 3rd to fourth floor of the building. The Hamburg airport is the most recent and Horst and Kevin's favorite part of the exhibit. It was, in our eyes, identical to the actual airport and they even had planes taking off and landing!

Switzerland

Airport parking garage

literally identical to Hamburgs airport entrance!

Also within the exhibit, is the control system for the employees to make sure there are no kinks with all of the different movement of boats, trains, airplanes, lights, etc. The control room itself was insane with seats for up to 7 different people. The Minitur Wunderland even has plans for up until 2020 for 4 more layout sections: France, Italy, Africa, and India.

Wunderland control area

Sorry for having such a long post about the Miniatur Wunderland, but we wanted you to see how cool it was! After we went to the Wunderland we all went to the Christmas Market to have a hot chocolate with Baileys before dinner.

The boys won their game yesterday to stay in 1st place in the league. Horst and Gale left today and we miss them already! We hope they had as great of a time during their trip as we did with them!!! Our internet guy is supposed to be here soon to take care of our problem, so these blogs will be back running regularly again soon! Have a beautiful week, tschüss!