Sunday, December 26, 2010

Christmas Vacation

We were feeling a little gutsy/adventurous/delusional a few weeks ago and decided to book a trip to southern Germany to visit my former missionary companion, who is German. She lives in one of the coolest areas of the world, Bavaria Germany nestled in the Alps, just a 15 minute drive from Salzburg Austria and a couple hours drive from Munich.

HUGE disclaimer: these pictures do NOT reflect our entire traveling experience. The trouble with blogs is that sometimes when you look at others, it's easy to feel a tintsy bit jealous because, come one, who blogs about the crappy (sorry Mom) part of their lives? What I'm trying to say is that this trip was not as entirely awesome as it appears to be. I guess I forgot to snap a shot of Emily whining/crying the entire five hours we were outside, or Caroline steamrolling us in the night as we all shared a small mattress in the same room, and I think Ben forgot to take a picture of me literally wrestling with Caroline on the airplane as everyone kept looking over their seats to view the live entertainment we provided. Ugh! Yes, it was definitely a difficult trip with the kiddos... but here are the highlights.
Salzburg... the birth home of Mozart.
Gotta love it!
My dear friend Martina and me at the Salzburg Christmas markets
A great view of the famous city
Inside the markets... it was so much fun! They had every Christmas decoration/ ornament you could imagine. My only regret is that I didn't get more (for the first time I actually have non-buyer's remorse!)
This stall sold tons of different egg ornaments! They make a tiny hole in the top of an egg, drain it, and then hand paint the shell.
The Europeans spare nothing when it comes to decorating for Christmas
Does this look familiar? This is THE gazebo from the Sound of Music... "I am 16 going on 17..." It was strange, it was just kind of stashed away in a corner of some random park.
The next day we visited the Silent Night chapel in Austria... this is the bridge dividing Germany from Austria. Notice the Alps in the background.
A man carrying his Christmas tree home. In Europe they don't really put up their trees until Christmas Eve.
And another random dude with a typical Bavarian hat
The Silent Night Chapel where supposedly the song was written. The pictures on the wall are of the man that wrote the music and the man that wrote the lyrics.

The chapel itself... super small
Oh, they had the best foods at the Christmas markets (Ben frequented the food stalls often). Em eating a chocolate covered strawberry kebab!
Awesome background picture, but I kind of ruined it with my turtle pose
Em, me, Martina... the river divides the two countries.
After the chapel we said good-bye to Martina and her little family and took a road trip to Munich. This was the best part of the trip... the girls slept, we enjoyed the sites of the German countryside all within the warmth and comfort of our car!
Alps


World Class Traveler: this picture captures Em's exact sentiments about traveling.
And our last night we went to the world famous Christmas markets in Munich! See below!

Munich


The town center
One of the many food stalls... most sold hot alcohol beverages... we stuck to the hot chocolate!

One of the many cool window displays, You can't tell, but the bears were all moving!




Em... SO happy to be back in a warm bed.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning... I must say I'm proud of our tree. To simplify our life we ordered it over the phone from some Polish guys and when they delivered it, it was as wide as it was tall. We did quite a bit of trimming and tried to cover the "receding hairline" as Ben calls it up top with lots of pretty ornaments.

Friday, December 3, 2010

ROME!

We have the awesome opportunity of traveling to Rome together while Ben is on "business." I wish I had taken a picture of the Warsaw airport before we left, but we were basically buried in snow. It has been snowing there for the past week! We were so glad to arrive in Italy where it was nice and relatively warm (in the fifties)

Em, in the Roman airport, finally starting to pull her own weight!

Well, sort of...

An ad at the train station in Rome... I found it ironic that as a Utahn I was visiting Rome on the other side of the world where they were advertising vacations in Utah.
This sorry sap to the left of us was from Saskatchewan and was traveling solo... we recruited his help in pulling our luggage all over the place...
We arrived after a long day of traveling and only had time to eat dinner and hit the sack. We asked our concierge for a good restaurant in the area and he recommended this hole-in-the-wall joint where the food was just mediocre. We figured he was just giving his friend the hook-up.
Caroline's eyes are DEFINITELY bigger than her stomach.

Are we having fun yet? I think Ben was a little worn out at this point...


Rome, Day 2

So, we got really brave and booked a three hour tour with our girls to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, which I sadly knew hardly anything about before our visit. It was simply amazing! This is me, a very enthusiastic tourist, waiting outside for our tour group to enter the museum. Side note: My hair color reveals my latest "lost in translation" debacle in Poland... the hairdresser didn't understand "blonde." Grrrrrr.Since we were chasing Emily around much of the time, I only got about 1/3 of what our tour guide was telling us... this is a courtyard inside the walls of the museums with a famous pine cone statue? Anyway, great photo op for Em and her daddy.

Me and random sculpture of I'm sure some important Roman. We did the whirlwind tour, our guide told us that is you spent 60 seconds examining every piece of art in the museum, you would be there for 14 years! Do you think she made that up? She could have made everything up and I wouldn't have known any different!
A giant toe of an excavated Roman statue. The guide said the only thing bigger than these statues were their egos. I guess the ancient Romans loved having sculptures/statues made of themselves.
The museum all by itself is AMAZING. Every square inch is covered in art, and so much of it was created in honor of Jesus Christ. The frescoed ceilings and walls, the marble and mosaic floors. It is so incredibly beautiful.
A fresco on the ceiling. All the gold is real.
Mosaic floor... this was the crest of Pope Leo XIII... I couldn't get it all in the picture but do you see the gigantic golden keys? They represent the keys of the priesthood being bestowed on him... interesting.
Check out the ceiling in this loooonnnng corridor.
An example of how every square inch of the museum is covered in art.
Ben dug this painting because it was painted by a Polish artist depicting a Polish general who beat the Turks in some war back in the 1600s (I think).
The "Immaculate Conception" room.
Raphael's most famous work of art: School of Athens. The central figures in red and blue are supposed to be Socrates and Aristotle. I couldn't believe that we were in the rooms where the most famous artists in the world created their masterpieces.
We lucked out BIG time because Caroline slept the ENTIRE time. She was conked out! Our last stop in the museum was the famous Sistine Chapel where Michaelangelo frescoed The Creation, the fall of Adam, and other biblical stories. They wouldn't let us take pictures, but it was surreal to be there. Did you know it took him 10 years to complete it? And, according to our guide, he wouldn't accept any pay for it, he simply hoped his salvation would be secured for his service. I hope he got it! I must say, I had a great feeling of accomplishment attempting what we did with a 2 year old and a 9 month old. They actually did really well! I walked out of the museum and excitedly punched my fist up in the air. Yes, I am a dork.
Then we ran over to St. Peter's square and got a quick picture. We were literally there for five minutes... we hope to get back tomorrow.
After Ben met with some people from the American embassy we dined at this tasty restaurant... Ben ordered some mozzarella, he apparently had something else in mind besides this gigantic ball of cheese... hahaha
I ordered the bruschetta
Caroline ordered a jar of baby food
This was funny... Ben's friend at the embassy told him as an alternative to the typical super thin pizza crusts you can order a "potato" crust which is supposedly thicker. So, Ben did that and he got a super thin crust with roasted potatoes on top. It was actually really delicious.
And then we stopped for gelato...

And our last stop of the night was the Trevi Fountain. The girls were both having meltdowns at this point so we booked it back to the hotel.