Leaving home is hard to do.

I used to pride myself on never really being homesick when I went away to other countries or science camp (though of course I always crave food from home!). I'd wave goodbye and hop on a plane, ne'er to return for all of a couple weeks or months. Honestly, I still think my parents like having me out of the house!
Me: "SO, GUYS, THERE'S THIS SCIENCE CAMP AT ____ THAT I REALLY WANT TO GO TO. IT'S ONLY __ WEEKS AND $____!"
Them: "Hm, fair trade for peace and quiet. See ya, sucker!"
Or something like that, right? Hahaha.

And oh, sure, I'd leave boyfriends behind and consider it hard, blah blah blah. None of them were worth even half of this one.

"Quoiiiiiii?!" I can hear him saying. This picture courtesy of Doug the Malware Man.

It's because this one is special (and I mean that in ever sense of the word) that I got it in my head to pull of my biggest surprise ever: proving once and for all that yes, Uri, I can keep a secret and it's going to make your Christmas!

It started with Jen and Dan and the circle gradually grew to include everyone else except Uri. Lookit us go, would you? Jen and Dan even concocted a plan that even Uri couldn't get out of once he'd committed to do it: babysitting! It continued with my friends here getting me out the door in time to catch the bus out of town, carrying my things for me and sending me off with hugs, smiles, and waves!

In fairness, there were sugar cookies involved...

So there I was in Heathrow, 3 AM my time, lying through my teeth to my boyfriend about my bus breaking down and that's why I'm late to my friend's house where I'm totally staying (not). Fast forward 8 hours and I'm on the plane leaving a voicemail...and the tone everyone who's ridden a plane knows means, "Announcement time!" Oh no, do not  blow my cover now!!! "AND, UM, YEAH, WE'RE IN THE STORE NOW SO I GOTTA GO TALK TO YOU LATER!" D'you know, the boy heard it, didn't pick up on it, and actually believed my silly lies!

WARNING: Traveling at odd hours and not getting sleep does this to me!

And then...Miami. Ayy, MiYAmi! I do love it so, that crazy land. [It's why I'm taking Spanish again!] At any rate, it was hot and sunny and gorgeous and omigosh, it felt amazing to be home. Jen and the kids swung by to pick me up with my big green Santa bag and off we went, to Cooper City and the Surprise (yes, that's intentional. It deserves a capital S!). And y'know what? This video captures it all. ;)

Quite frankly, this was the highlight of my entire time at home (can you blame me?). :)

At any rate, I was quite busy puppysitting (Skippy's still Senor Snuggles and Corbin's still dark, handsome, and slightly less brooding than he was before) and catching up with people. You really don't know how much you are loved until you are missed! Lots of people were seen and lots done, so please don't be surprised/sad/pissed if I leave anything out. There is an awful lot to read in this post. For now, pictures!

From the Taco Thursdays Secret Santa party. I made out like a bandit with the gift!

Mom and Dad after our day of strenuous kayaking. That's the problem with MacArthur SP---it can get so  very, very windy!

Kudos to Uri and Mom for sticking it out!

Lookin' good in that kayak, sir!

...but isn't it GORGEOUS?! Worth the wind for days like these!

The holidays are the most delicious time to come home, let me tell you! Enter Hanukkah at Steph's house with Uri's family...I neglected to take pictures (I'll chock it up to sheer embarrassment over being severely pwn3d [owned for the non-l33t among you] by her children at dreidel). Latkes and doughnuts and hummus, oh my! I swear I gained no less than 3 pounds that single night. Presents were exchanged, jam sessions were had, and dreidel was learnt. An awesome first Hanukkah, methinks! :) My two favourite pictures from the night follow (they're Jen's...I think. They are of her daughter, anyway!).

OMG THERE'S A SHINY GREEN THING ON MY FACE WHAT IS THIS I DON'T KNOW IF I LIKE IT OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

I just love how totally nonchalant this is.

Christmas was pretty wonderful, too! Kristina and Doug were back in town and in spite of the drive-to-Tampa-and-home-again! shenanigans over Christmas day, Uri and I had a great Christmas together. Here are some pics Doug took from our Danish-y Christmas eve dinner. Duck. Pig. Uri's cranberry sauce. Rice Pudding. HAPPINESS.

Love that the whole fam loves him (almost) as much as I do. :)

We are sans Uncle Don! WAUGH!

Ah, here he is.

Sus's tree with presents piled underneath. :)

Omigosh, they CAN smile.

A quiet New Year's was followed by the terrible realization that I have to go back. WHAT.  It really hit me when Uri's next oldest brother came home and we went out to dinner the night before I left. Hello, Ari and goodbye, Isha. [Blessedly, it was Cuban food. Fue deliciosa.] So very bittersweet as I'm finding it is these days...

The parental units dropped me off at MIA after some quality time spent in one of Miami's many parking lots--known elsewhere as highways. Daddy bought me jugo and a guava pastry and this time, I didn't cry. I suspect it was because I had to say goodbye to Uri earlier that morning.

My flights were relatively uneventful. We left MIA late due to "maintenance issues" and ran into turbulence more than usual, but none of it was too terrible. It helps to have a studied air of boredom with all things flying: "Oh, turbulence? Not again. It's so very droll. Why not something exciting like plummeting from the sky?" I jest, of course.

It's not that I hate Iberia or British Airways, it's just that I wouldn't choose to fly them again if I can avoid it. When on long international flights, I'm fairly horrified when personal in-flight entertainment isn't offered. Call me pampered, elitist, whatever, but I suspect you, too, would have similar views on the matter after just one long flight. (That being said, bless my dear boyfriend for purchasing 1Q84 for me...it was incredible!) Unfortunately, the jerk in front of me who liked to throw his seat back with zero warning and keep it there, the very loud music spilling out of the headphones of the guy next to me, my butt deciding it was going to go painfully numb in the awkward seats, and a number of small children tearing down the aisles and then screaming with altitude changes made the whole thing a great deal more unpleasant. I did discover, however, that I've not lost all my Spanish and can follow directions and ask for simple things well enough. That and the lithpth are a total FACT. I was so excite!

But Barcelona...

The first glance took my breath away. The beautiful blue of the Mediterranean paired with the city spilling out of the hills (mountains?) and the seemingly uniform burnt orange roofs were absolutely gorgeous. I didn't even hate the airport on sight! In fact, it is quite nicely laid out--not too much walking (for an airport, anyway), open architecture, and many vistas of the airport and the hills and the city (but only if you're in the right terminal, I'd wager). I simply must come back, and that's very final in my mind. I regret that I packed my camera away in my (overweight) checked bag. Which was "mishandled". If you're reading "NOT IN MY POSSESSION UNTIL FRIDAY MORNING BEFORE I LEFT FOR KÖLN DUE TO BRITISH AIRWAYS FAIL AND EVEN MORE FROM THE COURIER WHO DIDN'T CALL ME", then you have the right idea. Come to find out (today, in fact!), BA has a terrible reputation for "mishandling" luggage...wish I would've known that sooner!

The weather at Heathrow was quite terrible--spitting, grey, and cold. Same as Buckingham, same as usual--yet these past days have been a strange (and decidedly cold) sort of lovely. 

Like so cold water froze!

It's all right for now, but as always, I yearn for my beloved South Florida.

This is the view from my backyard. Be jealous, non-Floridians! Mwahahahahahaha.

And my boy, of course. Just a couple short months until our amazing trip of epic awesomeness! Now that will be quite the post. Until then...

I'M LIKE MATT SMITH WOOOOO

Cheers!

Kölle Alaaf!

Greetings! I have been away for far too long and I've rather missed this blog. Never fear, though, for I have returned! I know it's a bit odd that I appear to have completely ignored the fact that I was, y'know, home for a month, but it was hard to write about it then. I promise to try to do that time justice this week. My wonderful boyfriend is helping me with that post---there will be adorable results to show very, very soon! :) Quite frankly, I have no excuses other than to say I immensely enjoyed being home and surrounded by familiar weather (yes, I'm listing that first. You didn't see what it was like this morning!), family, and friends and I didn't feel like writing about it before it had come to an end. And then it became hard to...

In the meantime, I shall soldier on with tales of Deustchland! YAAAAH.

WARNING: This is a long entry day! (Also, no Rammstein here.)

After getting back to Buckingham absurdly early, Laura and I nailed down our plans for taking on Köln (otherwise known as "Cologne", but that's so böring!).

As some of you know, my family and I once hosted a German exchange student named Benita. What many of you may guess is that we lost touch over the past 10 (or so) years and what all the young'uns reading this will know is that I found her again on Facebook. Huzzah! 

Fast forward to Friday afternoon. After "misplacing" my luggage, I finally got my hands on it the morning I was leaving for Germany. What ensued was a frantic mess of putting things away and shoving other things into a bag that quickly became the bane of my existence for the duration of this trip. I made it to London and met up with Laura and her friend...with 15 hours to go until our flight left. Go. Us. Suffice to say we spent the night terribly, terribly awake until we hit the plane. It's times like these when you know you've got a real traveling buddy in someone when you dance in a (nearly) empty train at 3 AM and simultaneously rejoice at the fact that OMG GATWICK AIRPORT HAS FOOOOOOOD AT 4 AM! Oh yeah, and poke fun at how the other sleeps (I know I'm a mouth-breather, okay?!). 

Did I mention Laura knows German? Because that (repeatedly) was a "THANK GOODNESS" moment. It's super helpful when your traveling buddy happens to speak the language of the place you're visiting and can buy the appropriate train ticket when all you want to do is pass out on the train platform...at any rate, I felt more prepared than Nikolas when he go to Deustchland knowing only the lyrics to "Du Hast" (s'what I hear, anyway! Hahaha). 

Y'know, it really is wonderful knowing someone when you travel to a place. This means that after nearly 10 years of not seeing each other, you can pull this: Greetings! Salutations. NAP. And then they take you out for amazing local food and drinks! [Read: blood sausage is most definitely and deliciously involved!]

This place has a bunch of different rooms, but Benita took us down to the cellar!

This is my favourite kölsch of Köln! It's a local brew served in small glasses. I argue it's because it will never get warm, even if all you do is sip it, but I don't think sipping is possible. This stuff is so drinkable it's retarded. If you don't want any more (only because you can't afford any more, I'm sure!), place it on top of your kölsch as though to say "I shall take no tea." Except it's kölsch!

My goodness, aren't we gorgeous!

Bear this in mind: unlike a great deal of Germany, Cologne is a Catholic town. As such, they do a lot of interesting things like come around restaurants/pubs/whatnot during Three Kings Day and collect money like so:

...and the night ends in a Commie bar with a most excellent bartender. No, seriously, I'm not kidding---this place had  the Communist Red Star wallpaper and random pictures of "great" Communist leaders. Too legit to quit!

Before I go any further, we need to make something clear: the Dom dominates this city (ohohoho, I'm punny!). Observe:

I wasn't kidding.

Laura's first (apt) words upon seeing it up close were, "THIS CATHEDRAL IS OUTTA CONTROL!" 

Oh, we had NO idea...until our personal English guided tour of the Dom! It's impossible for me to even begin to properly recount the history of this massive and beautiful church except to perhaps throw in some informative captions on a select few pictures.

This is the view you get immediately after exiting the central station. BOOM. IN YO FACE.

Ohai thar, Gothic architecture! You're only like 800 year in the making...

And it's known for this, the Shrine of the Three Kings. This reliquary is apparently the largest in the Western world (or so Wikipedia informs me) and holds relics of the Magi.

Since it's a huge pilgrimage site, this statue of the patron Saint of travelers (St. What's-His-Name) stands in what used to be the main entrance before the cathedral was completed (but then again with all the repair work, will it ever be completed...? The people here say that when the Dom is finished, the world will end!).

St. Paul's of London! In mosaic!

This is the most amazing stained glass window I've ever seen. Benita's even met the artist! So what used to be this window was blown out in WWII (no small wonder if you've seen any of the devastation left behind here after the bombs) and it hadn't been replaced. The artist Gerhard Richter won a competition for his design for this window. He took c. 30 colours he found in the (plethora of) other stained glass in the cathedral and put it into a computer program to "randomly" arrange the colours. But hold on a minute! It's not as random as you think. See the 6 columns? Break those into two sets of three. The first and third (and fourth and sixth) columns are mirror images of each other while the second and fifth are mirror images of each other as well. How cool is this?!

Read more about the Kölner Dom here.

Super cute train tour of Cologne that stopped right outside the Dom!

I know every place has its own flavour and oddities, but Cologne (I'm giving up on the fun way of writing it) was throwing a lot more at us as far as cultural traditions and deeply-held resentments go (not who you'd think!). 

Remember the whole Catholic town thing? Yes, well, this plays out terribly well in the form of CARNIVAL! It happens runs from November until Ash Wednesday and gives every resident of Cologne an excuse to dress like it's Halloween, throw parties, and culminates in the entire city running amuck in February. Much like Gasparilla, they have "courts" (of a sort, but called Dreigestirn...and we got to see one! The Dreigestirn contains the Jungfrau (virgin, always played by a man), Prinz (prince), and Bauer (farmer). We were told by Benita that people here would kill to see these guys, so I made sure to take some video!

Part of the guard.

A very smart bit of advice for you: never, ever, under pain of certain death! mention anything positive about Dusseldorf. It started when, at the hostel bar in a VW van (see below), Laura and I happened to mention we were considering taking the train and visiting Dusseldorf for a day.

"Oh, Dusseldorf? They are so ten years ago!" is the kindest thing we heard. The other things are really quite unkind to post here, so I'll leave them out and encourage you to find out on your own! Needless to say, there's a bit of a rivalry between Cologne and the 'dorf...read a little about it here. Also, when taking the autobahn from Cologne in the direction of Dusseldorf, good luck finding signs for it! Hahahahaha.

Not even Laura or riesling can class up this VDub...

Perhaps the most normal picture we took.

So I ruined this picture...

...but Beni totally ruined this one. And Laura looks the same!

Oh look, the roof is caving in...

Ah, Dirrrrrk, you had to be in here somewhere! We'll take a better picture next time. :)

Totally wasn't kidding about this.

As such, we opted to go for our original choice and hopped a train to Bonn, the former capital of West Germany.

All you need to know about Bonn is this simple fact: Ludwig von Beethoven was born here. 

Oh, look, a statue of Mr. Angstypants himself!

DID YOU GET THAT? LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN WAS BORN HERE!

Okay, okay, I got it. Did you inform the pigeon perched on his head, though? He might not foul the statue if only you told him, too!

As such, Laura and I were compelled to visit his house. There's...really not much to say about that, unfortunately. It was a lovely museum, but not anything so riveting I'd return. Hooray for Beethoven's things that were largely not connected with Bonn except HE WAS BORN HERE, I guess? Also, almost every single portrait/sculpture of him shows him with exceeding amounts of angst.

Just in case you weren't sure where to find the house, Mr. Angstypants as graffiti will inform you!

The house where he was born...now stuffed full of random Beethoven things. 

But I digress. We had a lovely afternoon just walking around town taking in the squares, streets, architecture, and a great lunch (not pictured, but always remembered!). 

I AM DISAPPOINT.

Never have I ever encountered produce such as this!

CLOSEUP IS EVEN COOLER!

We found a couple of these markets scattered about town. ADORBS.

I do love German architecture (or is it just Western European? I dunno, but it's gorgeous!).

Well...we found the EU Commission in Bonn...but it was rather uneventful.

This reminds me of brownstones in Boston. Except we're in Bonn and those definitely  aren't brownstones.

The Poppendorf Palace!

This is basically as far as we got considering it's a) winter and the botanical gardens weren't exactly luscious and b)  really all that's there is a mineralogical museum. In German, likely.

Ahhh, picturesque neighborhoods...

This, my dears, is a LIBRARY.  In a park/square! Like a hostel! IT'S FANTASTIC!

Real fast, y'all have GOT to see the room Laura and I stayed in...

For the record, this was a hostel. We paid accordingly (read: CHEAP). When in Cologne, stay at Die Wohngemeinschaft.

Our last day was spent primarily at the EL-DE Haus with Dirk, Benita's other half. Once a former Gestapo HQ, it's now an extremely informative and incredible museum documenting the Third Reich. I strongly encourage anyone in Cologne to go, even if you don't sprechen sie Deustch---there's a stellar audioguide in English for an absurdly small amount of money. Everything is extremely thorough, well-documented and presented, and they even preserved the detainment cells downstairs complete with their inscriptions by inmates. We spent three hours there without even realizing it! Absolutely incredible.

Turns out Dirk's a history buff! So not only was he excited to join us at EL-DE Haus, but he was also able to give us little tidbits of really interesting information. Like with this:

These markers are left outside the houses of people (especially Jews) who were deported by the Nazis. 

Dirk and Laura humored me and permitted me to cross some things off my list before we left:

1) GET ANOTHER BERLINER. Seriously, guys, fresh Berliners will rock your world. 

2) Do the Koelner Dom coinpress! I'll get the one that costs 2 Euros next time, but for now, I like my pressed 5 Euro cent piece. :)

3) Find Japanese kare (curry!). This one I didn't know I meant to do in Cologne, but we found an Asian store AND THEY HAD MY KARE. I can't wait to make it!

Because Benita was at work, Dirk took us to a couple things we hadn't made it to--the Hohenzollernbrücke (Hohenzollem Bridge) where you "lock" your love

We're told city officials are begging people to lock their love on the other side of the bridge in order to balance out this side.

These people aren't kidding around!

Um...yeah.

and the KölnTriangle tower where you can get an awesome 360 degree view of the whole city! Dirk got some great pictures on his phone (wait, so why do I have a camera?) and I got a wee video.

The Old Town

That bridge is the Hohenzollernbrücke.

As an interesting bit of history, everything on this side of the Rhine was bombed to hell by the Allies  (but the Nazis blew up the bridges) except for the Dom---it's so high that on a clear day you can spot it from 100 miles away! Or so I'm told. Either way, it was an excellent and fixed point of reference for the Allies to accurately bomb other targets.

On the opposite side of the tower.

We caught Cologne at its loveliest hour. :)

Benita graciously came with us to the airport (so close to town, by the way!) and saw us all the way to security and even waved as we went through. That was definitely a little bit heartbreaking, but at least I know I'll get to see her again soon! :)

Cologne is far too beautiful a city to never visit. It's a large city where you don't feel isolated--sort of a small-town feel. It's a rare thing. Perhaps the closest comparison I've ever encountered (albeit terribly flawed, so forgive me here) is Boston...a pretty funny comparison to make as Laura hails from there!

Awwwwww

I leave you with a Köln joke..."Kölsch is the only language one can drink!" 

[If you didn't get it, scan the Wikipedia article.]

Cheers!