Ich bin ein Texaner

I had so much fun -- and took so many photos -- in Croatia that I'm splitting it into three posts. You can find the first post, devoted to Zagreb,  here . After spending two nights in Zagreb, and soaking up some amazing food and sights, we spent Monday driving to Split. Google Maps initially told me it'd take four hours, but it was more like five and a half. For the first I-don't-know-how-long (but-it-seemed-like-forever), we were in a 40km speed limit zone. That's 25mph. As Becky said, it was the land of school zones. Now Sammy Hagar is singing "I can't drive 25" in my head... We arrived in Split and were able to make our way to the neighborhood of our AirBnB, but it was impossible to tell from the street which house was the right one. Fortunately our host was super responsive and said that his dad would come out to meet us. Sure enough, we found dad straightaway, and he coached us into the tiny parking spot meant for our car. Then he took my giant su...

If you follow me on Facebook, you probably know that I spent a week in Croatia recently, in celebration of my friend Becky's significant birthday. She wanted to go somewhere awesome and inexpensive, which makes for a short list. She settled on Croatia and asked if I'd like to go along. I'm closer than most, so it's easier for me to get there. After poking around a bit, I got really excited about the trip and ended up doing a fair bit of the planning for it. Becky had set aside a week for the trip, plus a couple of days on either end for traveling and recovery. She really wanted to go to Zagreb,  Plitviče  Lakes National Park, Split, and Dubrovnik. We decided to rent a car rather than take trains so we could keep our own schedule. Then it was just a matter of deciding what to do. I found a day-long tour of the national park, including pickup from and dropoff to Zagreb. That consolidated things a bit and made travel easier by one stop. Still, three cities in a week is...

Last Tuesday was Bradley's last day in town, so we headed into Munich to check out Schloss Nymphenburg - which I discuss in  this post . Near the palace is something we didn't get to check out on our previous trip, the Munich Botanical Gardens. This sounded like a good idea to all of us, so we headed over. The first place we headed in the gardens was the roses section. Unfortunately, we had come too late in the year to see the roses at their best. We did, however, get to see this little guy puttering around the center of the area, keeping the grass nice and manicured. *beepbeepbloopbeepitybeep* Lisa found one of her happy places: a see of purple flowers. But ... but ... PURPLE! The gardens have a huge area that is pretty much all dahlia hybrids. Despite the fact that they are all listed this way, the variety of flower shapes was truly impressive. Really, it is hard to make humorous captions about flowers The perfection of the petal shapes on these guys amaz...

OK. I'll admit it. My views of Oktoberfest were pretty limited. I figured it was only beer-halls and food and maybe a carnival ride or two. That limited idea, then, did nothing to prepare me for what Oktoberfest in Munich really is. I think to call it a spectacle is appropriate. Yes, when it comes right down to it, it is basically still beer-halls and food and carnival games and rides. However, the sheer size of it in Munich is something to behold. And the sheer number of people! Lisa, Bradley and I headed down to the grounds on Thursday morning. I had heard that it gets more crowded and more ... rambunctious ... later in the day, so we left the house around 11. Bradley had actually made it down there on Monday for a short visit (more on that in a minute) and basically knew where we were going. Not that we needed a map. Getting there was dead simple: get off the train at Hackerbrücke and follow the crowd. Well, crowd may be an understatement. Maybe "river of humanity" w...

Hey, look! A blog post! The first one in almost a month. "What the heck, you slackers!" The short and long of it is this: We have been moving. And not just moving in the "they delivered our stuff and now we have to unpack" sense. No no no. This is "I'm too old to be doing all this stuff" moving. Let's back up... When we left Austin, we split our stuff into 3 moving piles. Pile 1 (the smallest) was stuff that we were taking on the plane. What we needed for the first 2 to 3 weeks over here. Mostly summer clothes with a few warmer things. Meds. Toiletries. Think "packing for a long trip on steroids". We each checked two suitcases and had a carry-on. So, a bit of stuff. Pile 1 (obviously) went to our temporary apartment with us. Pile 2 was a little bigger and was shipped via air freight. It arrived in about 2 weeks. There were more clothes and a few other things (my desktop computer with all my financial stuff on it, for instance)....

One of the questions one often gets when one moves is simply, "What do you miss about home?" Of course, this doesn't have to apply for a change of countries. A change of cities will generate the same question. It is, however, compounded when one changes countries (and continents)! So, without further ado... Well, OK. Here is the "further ado". The obvious thing we miss the most is all of our friends and family. It goes without saying that it is tough to be away from those nearest and dearest to you. The internet helps and being able to call makes a difference, but there is nothing like spending time in person with those close to you. This, in a weird convoluted way, leads to the first thing I miss: Being a native speaker of the primary language. This makes all kinds of everyday tasks more challenging (I got a dressing down at the driver's license office for knowing no German), but it also makes meeting people that much more difficult. We don't want t...

This week has been hot. I can feel the Texan eye rolls from here, and I get it. It's much hotter in Texas than it is here. However, in Texas there is an abundance of air conditioning. Here there is virtually none. Not our apartment, not Robert's office, not most stores. There are a few mall-type places that have AC, but you have to go looking for it. Additionally, we spend a lot more time outside here than we ever did in Austin. We lived in a pretty walkable neighborhood in Austin, but I felt pretty virtuous if I walked to lunch or dinner a couple times a week. Here, it's near-daily. We walk to the train station (about 12 minutes). We walk to the grocery store (5 minutes now, but that'll be longer at the new place). If we take the train somewhere, there's walking on the other end. All of that means more time outside. Until this week, that was a wonderful thing. The summer weather was glorious, the trees are green, there's a lot of green space throughout Mu...