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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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wedding and portrait photography

When Colin was in Jr. High, he had a foreign exchange student named Thomas come and live with him for a year.  Tom was from Germany and throughout the years has kept in close contact with the Feldhaus’ and his other Texan friends.  So, since we were so close, we thought we’d pay him a visit.

We got some amazing deals on our flights to Germany!  If you are ever in Europe you should check out Ryanair. If you have flexible dates of travel you can get some tickets for 3 euros!  We even saw one flight for -1 euro (yes, that’s negative one euro!), but we would have had to leave that day and didn’t have the time to get to the airport.

Of course, we would be the ones that would hold the plane up.  After trying to get through security, we were sent back to a passport control place so they could check our visas and get the “approved” stamp on our tickets.  Then it was time to board the plane and the lady ripped the bottom part of our boarding pass so we could get on the plane.  Once we were on the plane, the flight stewart stopped us and told us we didn’t have the “approved” stamp on our ticket.  We tried to explain that we did, but the lady inside ripped that part off.  We even showed the top corner of the stamp that was still on our paper.  Some security guy left with our tickets to get the stamp again while we had to wait at the front of the plane – not being able to sit down and none of the tickets have assigned seating.  The plane was almost completely boarded and we figured we’d have to sit in random places in-between random people.  We apologized for the mix up – and i think we got on the stewards good side because when the security guy returned they explained it wasn’t our fault.  The lady who stamped our tickets was supposed to stamp it once at the bottom and once at the top… instead of twice at the bottom!  Then he opened one of 3 blocked off aisles for us so we could sit together.  So, kudos for the very kind flight steward that let us sit together!  It was also funny to watch all the German flight attendants try to get everyone situated so we could take off on time.  We found out that Germans are very precise and on time people – opposite of the laid-back Spainsh lifestyle.  And since Ryanair is the “on-time airline” – with 90% of their flights arriving on time – i think they might have been a bit tense.  But even with all the mixups, we landed on time.  (And i think this is due to a little trick they might have of saying the flight time is longer than it actually is.  I can’t say that for sure, but that is my guess.  kinda funny!)

And here is a picture of the French Alps from the airplane.

We were prepared for the much cooler weather that Germany had compared to Spain, but i had no idea how rainy it can be.  There were thick clouds covering the skies most every day- all day.  Lots of rain, but a beautiful country.  I think it might be rainier in Germany than New Zealand!  Seriously!!!

Tom had to work the next day, so his wife Svenja took us to look at a castle before heading to lunch at Tom’s parents house.  The whole castle and property was beautiful.  We went down in the dungeon to look around which was quite fun.  Svenja taught us our first German work “Schloss” which meant castle.  We even met some German guy who worked there who had been to Texas multiple times.  He said he was stationed there and goes back every once in awhile because he grew to love it!  He even knew where Fredericksburg was!

So here are some pictures of the castle:

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They had some wild peacocks roaming around the grounds and Colin dared me to touch one… so i couldn’t say no!  And i did touch him!!!

A cool reflection picture Colin took.

The castle

Here are some more photos from our walk around town… continued from the last post!

One evening i was getting cabin fever pretty bad and convinced Colin to go on a walk with me.  We’d been cooped up inside for a few days working on the videos, and I needed to get out and get some fresh air.  We took a walk around our tiny town.  We explored some new parts and visited some old parts, but had a great time.  Colin took tons of pictures so we divided the good ones into two posts.  hope you enjoy.

When we arrived to Spain, Esteban and Noelia told us about this mythical place called “Andorra”.  Colin and i were a bit clueless and soon found out that it was a real country!  Obviously, neither of us paid much attention in World Geography!  Andorra is a very small country in between Spain and France… about 3 hours north of Barcelona.  We all took a road trip and headed up there for a weekend.

We left in the morning and our first stop was breakfast.  Esteban and Samuel love this one place to eat.  It’s a restaurant where you pay 3 euros to get in, and there is all kinds of raw meet laid out (mostly pork products… many different kinds of sausages, bacon, ham…)  You pick what you want and take it to the grills provided, and cook away.  (Talk about a guys restaurant!)  Now, pork isn’t known to be the most lean of meats and I think in Spain, it’s probably 40% fat!  I’ve never seen so much grease on a flat grill in my life!  All I can say is, thank goodness for the eggs and tomatoes they provided… but by the time i finished cooking them, they were covered in as much grease as everything else.  When the grilling was finished, this is what Colin’s plate looked like.  looks appetizing doesn’t it…  And of course, this picture does no justice to the amount of grease the was actually on the plate.

Once we were full on grease, we continued our trip.  We arrived before lunch and were able to check into our hotel.  Then the rest of the day we spent driving around and looking at the breathtaking Andorra.  We were lucky enough because the first snows had already hit, and yes, there were a few snowball fights.  The whole country of Andorra is in the middle of huge mountains.  Most of the towns are located in the valleys, but there are some that are on the mountains themselves.  It’s mainly a country for tourism and winter sports, with a few VERY wealthy residents.  During the winter time, Andorra is packed with skiers, snowboarders, and other winter sports.  They do have other activities in the warmer seasons like hiking and mountain biking.

This photo was taken around 1:30 – 2pm.  So 9 degrees Celsius was the high for the day…. brrrrrrrrr!

We went to the top of some mountains where the ski fields were.  They weren’t open quite yet, but there were many people skiing and sledding on their own.  I (Andre’a) haven’t been sledding since i was in elementary school and lived in Maryland, so i was half tempted to bribe one the kids into letting me borrow one for slide down the hill.  But, i decided that the kids were having too much fun to take away their “toys”…

The whole group… Samuel, Julie (his one year old daughter who had never seen snow before!), Sandra, Noelia, Esteban, me, and Colin

The architecture of the buildings is beautiful!  Most of the houses, hotels, flats, and store buildings are all stone with the windows trimmed in wood and the roofs are all black tilling.  It was a nice change from all the stucco building where we are with the Spanish roof tiles.  (The stucco building are amazing themselves, but the homey feel of the stone buildings in the mountains makes you want to curl up on the couch next to a fire drinking a cup of hot cocoa.)

Colin “needed” to take this picture as proof to you all that Andorra is a real country.  Here he is outside a government building.

By:  Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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We arranged with some our new Spanish friends a couple weeks ago to set aside a day that we could all celebrate Thanksgiving together. Even though we were not in America, we didn’t want to forget this special holiday. So we planned our menu – which was extremely tricky because you can’t get a lot of essential ingredients over here. But we didn’t want to let that stop us… so we did a lot of improvising. Thanksgiving Thursday came and went and it was kinda hard for both Colin and I. It was our second Thanksgiving to miss (from being out of the country), and honestly, we were missing home. No Macy’s parade, no turkey dinner, and not Cowboys game to watch and fall asleep during. But once Saturday morning came, we were too busy cooking to remember being homesick.

To begin with, neither Colin nor I have ever cooked a Thanksgiving meal. We have always celebrated it with our families – and our parents did all the amazing cooking. Last year, we were away and by ourselves, so we bought a rotisserie chicken and had some green beans and mashed potatoes. I think we might have made an apple pie, but that’s about it. So this was a new experience for the two of us. Lets just say we have a new appreciation for all the people who do this back home!! So much goes into the planning, cooking, and timing! It is truly a labor of love. It was interesting to plan what could fit in the oven at one time and how long it needed to cook before we could get it out and put something else in… But then you couldn’t just let anything cook first because when it was taken out of the oven it couldn’t get cold… WOW! All in all, i was seriously amazed that everything turned out! I loved planning everything from the grocery list to the time we needed to put in the chicken. It was so much fun and I was so content being in the kitchen cooking again that thoughts of home were long gone.  So for the menu…

We couldn’t find a turkey so we had to resort to 2 small roast chickens

We couldn’t find marshmallows for candied yams – so we had roast sweet potatoes instead.

Mashed Potatoes, green beans,dressing and stuffing, bread

and even had someone bring some cranberry sauce from the States!

We couldn’t find a lot of the ingredients for any pumpkin dessert, so homemade apple turnovers it was.

I think the meal was a success. There was 10 people there all together. We each went around the table and said something we were thankful for. It was fascinating to see what items of the dinner were a big hit. But most importantly, we were able to share this time with friends. We did have to have the traditional Spanish “coffee time” after the meal. Can’t have a meal in Spain without coffee time. So more chatting, sweets, and coffee were up. There was no american football on – or even spanish football (soccer), but today (sunday) is one of the biggest rival games ever… Barcelona vs. Madrid. So we will get our football fix in, i’m sure.

We hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving and now it’s time to break out the Christmas music!

Here’s Colin’s plate of food.

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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A while ago, a good friend of Esteban and Noelia came over to record a couple of songs.  Her name is Ana and she has an amazing voice.  Ana was another one of the people that went to Seattle last December to go to the worship training.  Most of the time while Esteban and Ana were recording, we stayed out of the way.  But Colin had to come in watch some of the time… he just couldn’t stay away!  Music, sound, and recording gear, are more of his passions!  So towards the end of the recording, Colin decided to snap some shots of what they were doing.

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

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Human Castles are an event that is only found here in Catalunya (a northeast region of Spain – including Barcelona).  Although just recently, some people from Spain went to Chile and are trying to start it up there.  Other than that -Catalunya is the only place where these human castles take place.  The best team is from Vilafranca – a town 20 minutes from where we are staying.  When we first arrived and toured the town, we saw the square where the human castles take place, but were told the season was over.  The big day or festival when they take place is usually the end of August.  However, we got lucky!  Noelia told us that they were having a tournament with four teams coming to Vilafranca.  So of course we made plans to attend and experience the real Catalan culture!

Each team is extremely large.  They probably have close to 80+ people.  There is always a huge base layer that nobody can really see – but it’s the most important layer and biggest… like a foundation.  From there, people start crawling over the base layer until they reach the middle and start the tower.  It’s really quite fascinating.  There are different types of castles.  They are named first by how many people are in each row, then by how many layers tall they are.   For example, you can have a castle that is 4 of 8.  This means there are four people in each row and it is 8 layers high.  A team wins by getting the most points.  Points are awarded by the difficulty of the castle, if they finish it, and if they can dismount with out falling.  I think there are many other ways to get points, but i don’t know all the rules.  Also, once the team makes it to the 4th layer – there is no turning back.  Up until that point, if they feel like any one of the layers or if the foundation is not good, they can dismount and retry for no penalty.  But once that 4th level is reached, a band begins to play and they must continue.  The band is for the team members on the bottom layers that can’t see the progress of the castle.  They know that when the music starts they have reached the 4th level and the music changes with each level completed.  Pretty good idea!  The castle is complete when someone (usually a ridiculously small child in a helmet) climbs to the top, gets in his/her position, and raises her hand.  If the hand is not raised, the team does not get points for completing the castle.  Then they still have to dismount with out calapsing.  It’s all fairly tricky, but so fun to watch.  You have to be patient though.  Usually it takes about 30 minutes of waiting before you even see people start beginning to build.  It takes so long for the team to get their foundation just the way they want it.  I think we saw 6 castles in 1.5 hours.  This was because while one team was building, the next one was preparing their foundation.  It saved a little time.

Well, here are some pictures.  We got lucky yet again and found out that the Vilafranca team was planning on doing a couple really hard castles… beginning with the 3 of 10!!!  It started off great… but then we saw some of the lower levels begin to wobble.  It’s pretty amazing to see a human castle completely finished, but there’s nothing that compares to a good fall!  (And they know how to fall correctly so nobody gets hurt!… at least that’s what i tell myself.)  So unfortunately, this castle didn’t make it, but it was a great fall!

Next was a red team.  They too started off really well.

You can see the small child with the helmet climbing up to the top.

But they too fell… Just look at the hair of the people on top.

Here’s a photo of another little girl on top.  The castle was complete because she raised her hand!

Here’s a cool story about this castle.  This blue team made there castle and began to dismount.  They were a bit shaky the whole time so everyone thought they would fall.  However, the child on top started to come down and realized the side she had chosen, was not stable.  So she quickly changed sides and continued to come down.  This allowed the team to regain their composure… and therefore, SHE saved the castle!

A couple more photos of the Vilafranca team completing a 2 of 8 castle!  This time they make it up and down… and this one is extremely difficult as you can imagine!

And last but not least, the funniest picture… I’m not sure who I’m more embarrassed for;  the person being grabbed, or the people grabbing.  Either way, I’d say it’s a bit awkward.

by colin and andre’a feldhaus

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ps. I edited a majority of these pictures with my own custom made “spanish” action.