Shabbat Shalom... from Germany

On Sunday Orly and Haggai are going back to Israel, and for their Bon Voyage, they're cooking a big Israeli dinner for all of their friends. Luckily this includes us. Since the kitchen in their rental apartment is basically a closet with a crock pot, Daniel and I offered them the use of our kitchen... 

And so it's 6 on Friday night, and our kitchen has turned into an Israeli restaurant! Orly and Haggai are in there cooking up some very fragrant dishes including Masaba Hah, Sabih, Hummus and Tahina, Tabouleh, ShakShuka, and Beef Kababs. Yum. 

In a couple of hours the guests will start arriving, and we'll have a truly International crowd gathered here for Shabbat. We will be 12 in all here for dinner, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be a very festive evening.  

Ahr Valley

This weekend Haggai and Orly


Jeremy and Deborah



and I

loaded our bikes on the train and took the one hour train ride to the town of Ahrbruch - the end of the line.

This town is located in the scenic Ahr Valley,

a famous region for wine - especially red wines.  After Haggai lost his hat, 15 minutes into our ride, we stopped at a wine tasting. Jeremy kicked back a few too many:

The ride from Ahrbruch wound through very picturesque towns

small vineyards


old train tunnels


and little farms


About one hour into the trip, the gears in my bike seized up

and the rest of the bike ride was like cycling through cement, uphill!  But we pushed on, switching the bad bike

 and making our way down the valley

We stopped briefly in Ahrtor, with its medieval gate for a coffee and weird gelatenous cake

and some grapes

Although it started to get dark


We made it to the ferry by dusk.



The ferry took us across the Rhein to the town of Linz, where we took a train back to Bonn. After the long day we celebrated with a Schnitzel and a Koelsch.

Viel Spass!

Interlude

Dear Friends and Family,

It's been a very busy couple of days for me here in Deutschland, and even though I've got so much to write about the bike trip we took on Sunday, I'm really just plain exhausted and overwhelmed with my new German class that started on Monday. Therefor, our biking adventure story is postponed until later this week, when hopefully I'll have recovered from intensive German shock. 

The Goethe Institute had all of us take a short exam to test our Deutsch skills on Monday in order to place us in our classes. My German ended up being too advanced (imagine that!) for the beginners class, and not advanced enough for the advanced beginners class (story of my life!).  

So they decided to have me try out the advanced beginners class and I've been working working working ever since. It's been pretty difficult because I understand quite a lot, but I can't speak. I have such a limited vocabulary and that makes it very hard to express myself. We'll see how long I last in this level... It's a tough situation because I don't want to pay all this money to learn everything I already learned this summer in my classes at the Germanic American Institute, but I also don't want to be totally lost with these advanced speakers.... 

I promise you pictures and a much more upbeat and interesting post by Thursday at the latest. Promise.... 

Love, 

Deborah

p.s. This post is dedicated to all of our super fans who check this blog daily and haven't seen anything interesting in say a week. We love you! 

Quality Entertainment

What can I say. We are so freaking lame! It's Saturday night in Germany and Dan and I couldn't find anything better to do but watch Puppy Bowl on our laptops. Yes, Puppy Bowl. 

Wait A Minute!

So I'm definitely a space cadet... I was absolutely positive my German classes started this week on Monday, but when I looked up the schedule on Sunday night before going to bed, I was hit with the undeniable truth that the course doesn't actually start until next week! 

So here I am, another week in Bonn, with my crummy German, waiting anxiously to get started on the road to fluency... 

Yesterday: Emails, Indian Lunch, grocery store, Samba Class, Ceramics Studio

Today: LEED research, Salad Lunch, more LEED research, Ping Pong, Aerobics

Gorging on Gambas

We got back late on Saturday - me sweaty and dusty from the Porquerolles Island and Deborah relaxed and invigorated from Paris.  

Last night we went out with three Israelis and one other American to a Spanish bar in Bonn for the all you can eat gambas night.  It was great for the first three servings, but by the end of the fourth I started thinking I might've gone too far.  Jeremy bested me by one plate, but feared he was going to have dreams of being a whale, clearing the krill from the ocean.  We'll see if that happened. 

But it was great fun and we're happy to be back in Bonn.  -Dan

Versailles

I'll keep this last post short...

Yesterday, after two days of rainy weather, the sun finally decided to come out again and grace us with its presence... So I decided to get myself out of the center of Paris and enjoy the outdoors...

And what better place to do that than Versailles! Oh my, what an unbelievable place it is. In design school we studied the interior architecture of this castle, and I thought it was high time I got out there to see it with my own eyes.

The castle is truly stunning. I don't understand how anybody could have lived here though... it's huge and it would have taken half an hour just to get from one end of the house to the other! But they did live here... kings and queens, their children and their pets...

I must say the gardens of the castle are even more spectacular. The grounds of the estate are immaculate, and so incredibly beautiful. I wish Dan had been there with me... we could have brought a picnic lunch, some wine, french cheese, a baguette, and enjoyed an absolutely gorgeous day in the park.

Here are some pictures... but make sure to check out House&Hound on Monday... I'm saving the best picture for last!

My French Family

Laura, Bonnie, and Me in Montreuil

It's been a very busy past three days, and I've had a hard time compartmentalizing everything into two solid posts, so here's the third and second to last post from Paris.

After my dog inspired trip to the Louvre on Thursday, I rushed back home for a short nap, and then took a subway train to a suburb of Paris called Montreuil, for a visit with a few of my cousins. My grandfather immigrated to Buenos Aires from Germany or Poland (we don't really know which) in the early 1900's before World War II, and although we don't know too much about his history, we do know he left a cousin here in Europe, who eventually made his way to France. And voila, we now have family in Paris.

I had a great time with Bonnie, her daughter Laura, Laura's daughter Emanuelle, and Laura's partner Valerie. We had wonderful Japanese take-out for dinner, and made plans for Laura and Valu to visit us in Bonn. I'm always trying to get people to come out and visit... the more the merrier!

After dinner, I made my way back to Montparnasse on the 6 train that got delayed because of the stray dog I wrote about yesterday on House&Hound. After fretting about the dog for an hour I finally fell asleep and woke up yesterday to another absolutely beautiful day in Paris...

Did Somebody Say Dog

This is the second post, possibly the last from Paris, as Dan and I are returning to Bonn on Saturday... so hold on to your pants!!!

Today I thought I'd visit the Louvre, seeing as last year I opted for the Musee D'Orsay instead, and I haven't seen the Mona Lisa since 2003. Could somebody please explain to me why this painting is so darn popular? There were hordes and hordes of people trying to get a good long look at it. Yet there are so many other spectacular works in the museum, with maybe 5 percent the number of devoted visitors...

Like some of the works below! This first one is actually just kitty corner from the Mona Lisa. It's in the same room! Can you believe it? I spent the day looking for any dog images in the artwork, and to my surprise, I found dogs everywhere. I found them in French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch paintings. I saw them with Jesus, the Apostles, Kings, Queens, and countrymen. Have a look...

Please note that this first painting circa 1548 by Jacopo Bassano is the first recorded animal portrait of Occidental painting.
************

And just in case you've made it down this far, I know some of you may not be quite as into Dog Art as others, here are some photos of me at the Museum...

Singing In The Rain

Well, a lot happens in two days, so I've got quite a bit to share with you. This will be the first of two posts.

Yesterday I thought I'd give myself a mid-week break from all the intense walking around I've been doing, and since it was raining and we decided we weren't going to be able to make it out to Versaille with this weather.

But the break didn't last long... I ended up taking a stroll mid-morning to kill some time, and wound up down by the Seine and Le Grand Palais et Petit Palais. The view from the Pont Alexandre is one of the best in Paris, but I forgot my camera, so you'll have to just believe me.

Somehow I got myself lost trying to get back home, and I found myself inadvertently on the Champs Elysee... Don't worry, I didn't do any shopping. With shoes running for a minimum of 1,600 Euros, even one tiny purchase would have been totally impossible. Not to mention completely ridiculous!

I managed to find a bus to take me back to Montparnasse, and joined Andrea at home for a late lunch of fish and chips. Afterwards, we decided to head out again, this time to Le Marais, where we were able to enjoy the neighborhood and picturesque Place de Vosges despite the rainy weather.

By evening, we were still tromping around Les Marais, and seeing as Oberkampf is just a skip and a jump away, we decided to go out to dinner at La Lubie! Yes, again. I think I'm going to make this into a tradition. Daniel and I discovered the small restaurant last year while staying in an apartment a couple of blocks away, and we liked it so much we returned there twice, maybe three times, for dinner. We already took Andrea here on Saturday evening when we arrived, and she liked it so much that she was almost more excited than I was about going back.

After a couple mojitos each, some really good food, and a lot of girl talk, we headed back home on the subway. And went straight to bed, exhausted, after yet another day of touring Paris.

Here are some pictures.

Shopping!

What's a trip to Paris without going shopping! Before leaving me here for the week, Dan made me promise not to break the bank... and so with that in mind, I went out this morning with hopes of controlling myself while surrounded by what is truly, without a doubt, some of the best design and fashion in the world. But what's a girl to do...

I decided to go back to the area of St. Germain that Andrea and I visited last night, where I had seen several french country furniture and design stores (my favorite), as well as some reasonably priced clothing boutiques. And don't forget the gelato cafe!

I was really impressed by design shop and furniture retailer Mis En Demeure. Honestly, the website doesn't do it justice, but I browsed every single room in the place, touching fabrics, admiring china, and marveling over incredibly unique color schemes.

I managed to use some restraint while trying on the most gorgeous dresses, beautiful blouses, and sweet sweaters at Noa Noa, as I walked away with only two purchases, even though I wanted to buy out the whole store!

I wasn't so successful with the gelato, where I had another delicious double scoop of Tiramisu and Amaretto... I guess I should feel bad, but really, I walked about five and a half hours today, and another 6 or so yesterday, and another 3 or 4 the day before that. So there!

After my mini-shopping spree, I decided I should get some French culture into my day, and found my way to the Jardin de Luxembourg. Here I rested a bit, took some pictures, wrote a bit in my notebook, and called it a day.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so I think that's a sign I should tackle the Louvre! A demain...