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While we were in Germany…

This is a slideshow of our friends Tom and Svenja.  We were actually in Germany the beginning of December and Svenja’s due date was the 24th!  What a great time to get some maternity photos done!  These two are so much fun and I’ve never laughed so hard during a shoot ever!  I will also brag on Svenja a bit…  I have never seen a more happy pregnant mom-to-be!  She laughed and giggled the whole week we were with them.  Not only that, she never once complained or whined about anything!  I would imagine after all the sightseeing and walking we did, she would have mentioned she was ready to go home.  But nothing of the sort came out of her mouth… and with as much as we did, you know she was exhausted… because I sure was!  But all we heard was more laughing and giggling.  She is an amazing person and an excellent example of how I want to be.  So meet our two hosts and German tour guides, Tom and Svenja!

This was one of the coolest little towns ever!  It has amazing architecture, beautiful scenery, and an awesome all year round Christmas store.  It is a very small town, but on the weekends it’s so packed because everyone comes in to shop.  Tom’s parents used to live in Monschau and we got to drive by their old house.  Anyway, here are some photos…

This was just a cool looking old building.

Along the river they had all these fun buildings!  A lot of the buildings are actually a bit tilted and the lines and colors are fabulous.

A close up of one of the tilted buildings.

colin and andre’a feldhaus

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One day, Svenya took us to an old Roman town that has some ruins.  She hadn’t been there since elementary school so it was even a little new for her.  It was pretty rainy when we arrived, but stuck it out anyway.  This first building is an old temple.

Here is a wall inside of the temple.

Then we decided to walk to the museum since it was inside and we could warm up a bit.  They had some fun things to try on.  First they had a saddle you could sit on and a shield to pick up.  Colin looked like a true warrior, but i was struggling just to pick up the shield!

Next, we came across some helmets sitting on a stand with a button to hear a story.  We probably pushed the button 6 times between the 3 of us, before a lady who worked their told us you had to put the helmet on to hear the story.  So Colin tried on the silver one.  Sure enough there were speakers inside where he could hear a story about the old Roman soldiers.  Since there was another helmet, i thought i’d try that one on.  Let me just say… the gold helmet was at least twice as heavy as the silver one.  I could barely keep my head straight!  Any slight movement on my part and the weight of the helmet would sway my head.  I had to keep my hand close to my head at all times just in case the helmet took over!  It was quite funny.

Colin taking a self portrait of himself.

By the time we finished in the museum, it had stopped raining!  So we walked over to the old amphitheater or coliseum.

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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Colin and I couldn’t decide what to do for a Christmas blog post, but finally decided on a “snowpost.”  (Since we had a white Christmas Eve which is a miracle in West Texas!!)

So here it is… Snow from Around the World.  These were all places we have been this year (2009) and witnessed snow.

Mt. Doom. New Zealand

Andorra

Eden, Texas

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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This cathedral was beautiful from the outside, but even more spectacular from the inside.

Then Colin and I decided to climb the tower of the cathedral. It was quite a hike up there – i think the sign said 533 steps. It probably wasn’t a great idea to do this after we ate a big lunch, but we made it and the views from the top were breathtaking.

some graffiti at the top… colin thought it looked cool.

the tallest steeple

You can see the Christmas Market below.

This is a very zoomed in picture of the lookout platform at the top.

the beautiful inside!

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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Walter (Tom’s dad) and Marcus (Tom’s brother) took us to another city called Köln.  (The weather was great so we must have eaten all our food!!)  This city has about 1 million people and has a very old and famous cathedral.  We walked around the Christmas Market, ate lunch, and then went inside the cathedral.  Here are some pictures of the christmas market.

mmmmm, waffles!  My favorite breakfast… but here they’re a snack food.  Either way they are delicious!

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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One afternoon Tom and Svenya invited a few of their friends over for cookies and glühwein.  Svenya had made tons of christmas cookies and even had a few store bought traditional ones.  Since I (Andre’a) absolutely LOVE cookies, I decided to try them all.  Why not?!?!  It is Christmas time and I needed to taste some authentic german baking!  So, here is a picture of my gingerbread cookie that Svenya made.  In the background is another Christmas dessert.  It’s a cake that has a few layers – which makes it shaped like a tree – thats why it comes out at christmas time.

That night, Tom and Svenya gave us an option to eat some German food or go to a Mexican Restaurant.  Colin completely shocked us all and chose the German food.  I mean, he hasn’t had real mexican food in over 2 months and has been craving it, and yet opted for the Schnitzel.  He said he’d be home soon enough and wanted to try something new.  So both of us ordered a schnitzel  with mushroom sauce.  I think we were both a bit surprised at how enormous they were!  We could have easily shared one, since we both filled up on cookies a few hours before!  But that’s ok, we were able to get a doggie bag and take our leftovers home.  The only problem was, in Germany they have a saying that says if you do not eat all the food off your plate, it will rain the next day.  Well, the weather is always rainy at this time of year – but at least now they could blame it on us not finishing our food!

Since we were so close to the Netherlands, we hoped on over there on morning to check it out.  Unfortunately, it was Sunday and 95% of the shops didn’t open until 1pm.  So, we just wondered the streets for awhile until we were tired of walking in the rain.  Here is a picture of one of the chapels in the Netherlands.

On our way home that day, we stopped in another little town – that i can’t remember the name of – to walk around.  Here are a few pictures from there.

Our friends Tom and Svenja

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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After meeting up with Tom for lunch and eating some authentic Germany food, we headed to the Christmas Market.  All of the larger towns in Germany have a Christmas Market.  They are set up for Advent – which is about 4 weeks before Christmas.  (And on a quick random side note… Germany has the most amazing Advent Calendars!!!)  So anyway, these Christmas Markets are a place where you can find food, drinks, christmas decorations, and tons of other stuff.  There are heaps of booths set up and each one has something different in it.  I could easily spend all day wondering around looking at all the German Christmas stuff.  We also tried some yummy foods.  Some of the foods and drinks you get at the Christmas markets, are only available at Christmas time.  We ate some candy coated almonds, a dikkman (chocolate coated moose dome thing), little pancake things, waffles (which are a snack here not a breakfast food), Reibekuchen (mashed potatoes patties served with applesauce), something similar to a pizza with onion ham and a white cream sause, and tried some glüwein (a warm mulled spiced red wine).  It was all so delicious and wished we had more time to try more things.  Anyway,  here are a couple pictures of the Düsseldorf Christmas Market.

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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Düsseldorf is the city we flew into and where Tom works. It has around 600,000 people living there and is quite a fun place to see. Svenja took us one day to check out the town. Our first stop was the TV tower. We went to the top and Svenja gave us a 360 degree guided tour.

Apparently this bridge is an icon of Düsseldorf. And it is built over the Rhine river.

In this picture you can see how the houses/flats are built in circles. Svenja explained that this is to help block the noise of traffic. She guessed the bedrooms face towards the inside of the circle where it is quieter.

This is an old port in Düsseldorf. They updated it awhile back so it would continue to be a nice and safe part of town. Here are some of the cool/funky buildings that they built.

i love the people climbing up the wall.

By Colin and Andre’a

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These first three pictures are from a town called Willich.  This is the town where Tom grew up and where his parents live.  We took a stroll around the town and found these beautiful doors.

These next pictures are from a really cool old factory we went to visit.  It was quite a rainy day and only had a couple hours before we had to get back home for some visitors.  But we weren’t going to waste the morning!  The factory was mostly closed for visitors for the winter, but there was still some stairs we found to climb.  Once we reached the top we had some great views of “industrial” Germany… there were tons of factories in site with steam coming out.

At this factory they also have a HUGE water tank that you can go scuba diving in.  I think Tom said there was a boat and some other things at the bottom that you can dive down and check out.  Pretty interesting.  They’ve actually gone scuba diving their a few times.

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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