Nothing Special

Another awesome day here in Germany!

I had a football game to cover again, and I spent way too much time running on to the field. I was admiring the setting sun on my drive home and thought it would be a nice evening to go out and shoot some photos. I wolfed down a couple of bowls of delicious black bean soup that Catherine had made, then packed up the kids in search of a good photo.

But we arrived just a couple of minutes too late : (

I figured I could try to salvage the opportunity and get a photo or two of the kids while we were out. Then it hit me - use the 10 second timer!! Another photo ruined . . .

Enjoy your day everybody. Tschuss!

Marc

Mornings in Germany

Early morning is easily my most favorite part of the day. All is quiet, except of course Ian and Leah ;-) . I've been wanting to get out and photograph some of the countryside here, but until this morning the skies haven't cooperated.

I pass some really cool areas on my way to work in the mornings, unfortunately they didn't pan out as far as photography goes. Gorgeous to drive past, but nothing compelling through the camera viewfinder. As I was driving to my locations, I passed this view from the road (about 2-3 minutes from our house). On my way back, I stopped on the road and took this photo.

I drove back into Thallichtenberg and decided to drive up some of my running paths prior to heading home. The fog was rolling in and out of the area, and the sun was just lighting things up beautifully.

Same photo here below as with the one above it, only the fog has rolled out just a bit. Probably less than a minute separated these two photos.

That's the view from our neck of the woods here in Germany. Enjoy your day, we are here!

Tschuss!

Marc

Oktoberfest!

This past weekend we did Oktoberfest in traditional (Marc) Skinner fashion - without a plan!! So here is the story . . .

I've been wanting to see the Munich Oktoberfest for quite some time. Just a cultural thing. Dirndls, Lederhosen, Bier. What other reason do you need? As this year was the last easy or convenient year to experience Oktoberfest, we planned to take it in while I was still in Texas this summer. Now, when I say "planned", I really mean Catherine and I spoke about it and she agreed to go with the caveat that had something more concrete than "Munich Oktoberfest on Saturday". We also wanted to see the Cannstater Volksfest in Stuttgart, which we decided to do in the same weekend.

Catherine took care of the housing (hotel), I was in charge of the other stuff. Yeah right.

My idea of a "plan" was to drive to Munich and search for the Bier tents. Turns out that plugging in city center for Munich into the GPS doesn't quite get you to the Theriesenwiese platz - where the fest is held. We had to stop at a hotel (after parking on the street in downtown Munich) and ask for directions. The concierge was incredibly helpful. He steered us to the subway, told us which station to get out at, and where to find the kids if we got separated.

There were 500,000 people at the 200th Oktoberfest in Munich last Saturday. I'm guessing the majority were crammed into the Bier tents, but there were still loads of folks just wandering around. Anyways, we made our way to the festival grounds and walked around a good bit. We looked at some of the rides, but pushed that off until the next day in Stuttgart. I got to sample some of the beer, then we all picked out some Souvenirs. Now we can say we've done the biggest Oktoberfest in the world.

The photo above is of the Cannstater Volksfest in Stuttgart. It is the second largest Oktoberfest in the world. I planned this one just as well as the Munich one. I basically knew it was in Stuttgart, and that was it. Thankfully the concierge at the hotel knew where to look for an address for our GPS. It got us there - but man was it a long walk to and from the car.

There was a parade coming into the park at the entrance we walked to, which was a ton of old farm wagons loaded with casks of beer, flowers, pumpkins - all sorts of things. A couple of the horse-drawn wagons went a different way through the park which must not have been too enjoyable for the horses, as they stampeded just a little bit (people were leaping out of the way for about 25 yards before the horses were brought under control). I've never seen anything like that before, and I'm glad we were behind the horses when that happened.

So now we can say we've seen the two largest Oktoberfests in the world. Yeah!! Munich was so worth it, I'm glad we went. However, Stuttgart was definitely more family-friendly and quite a bit smaller. And therefore easier to explore.

I hope everything is well with everyone out there! Cheers,

Marc

Hitscherhof Pumpkin Patch

I've never been to Hitscherhof before, but Catherine and the kids have. Since we're headed to Munich and Stuttgart next weekend (#1 and #2 "Oktoberfests" in the world), we figured we'd check out Hitscherhof this weekend.

It was a week before the big festival, but there were still some things to do. We checked out the pumpkins (mandatory) and the grounds. Catherine found their pumpkin soup recipe, which we need to have translated. It sounds pretty awesome though.

They had a corn maze that Ian and Leah were just dying to walk through. They had a good time, each of them taking the lead at different times. The person in the lead took direction from the person behind them, which made for some fun. Here are Ian and Leah in the maze:

Here is Ian checking out some of the pumpkins for sale. Each of the kids got to choose a pumpkin to bring home. Thankfully they chose small (since we drove the MINI).

Just a fun one of Leah. They had some big rocks outside of the maze that the kids had a great time playing on and climbing all over.

And a final photo of Ian and Leah mugging together for the camera, while sitting on the rocks.

Enjoy!

Marc

I'm baaack!

I got back from Texas this past Wednesday, and finally managed to sleep through the night last night. Jet lag is such fun!!

Ian and Leah, in true form, were up early this morning. A whole 15 minutes past the time that Catherine normally wakes them up kicking and screaming that they are tired. I'm sure I never did that ; )

Anyways, Ian had a soccer game today. He actually ran after the ball a time or two and kicked the ball. Aside from falling down late in the game we think he had a good time playing too.

Leah isn't playing soccer this year, but she had a nice time running around before and after the game. Maybe next year we'll get her to play too!

Enjoy your day everybody! I know we plan to . . .

Marc

Vive Le (Tour de) France!

Before I get to the Tour - I thought I'd share a couple of photos from our (Ian and my) little "camping" trip. Ian has been wanting to sleep in the tent for a while, so I set up the tent in the back yard. Catherine made us some 'smores for the occasion, and we told some ghost stories. All in all, we both had a great time.

This isn't camping as I used to know it - check out the great view we had of our castle here in Thallictenberg. Ok, ok, ok. So I used a bit of Photoshop magic - but not much really. I actually took this the evening after the camping trip, and we didn't actually sleep in that precise spot. But it definitely was less than a 30 second walk away.

The next morning we took off for Belgium - the Tour de France was coming our way, and only about 2 hours or so away (by the main roads, which we didn't take). We were actually driving on our way to Spa, Belgium when we stumbled upon the actual race course for Stage 2. We stopped and set up shop. There was a fair bit of build-up prior to the bicyclists arriving - more cars, motorcycles, helicopters. Then the first (attack?) group went by and shortly after that the main (chase?) group. The actual main group was past us in less than 30 seconds. I'm sure Lance Armstrong was in there - but they were going so fast that there was no way to pick anyone out from the pack.

We then made our way to Spa and caught the peloton again (the chase pack had caught up to the attack pack) as it was finishing the stage for the day. You can see from the signs only two more kilometers to go (just under 200 for the day).

And no amount of image stabilization would make these guys look sharp - it was starting to rain, was darkish, and they were going too fast. Still it was fun. Now we can say we've seen Le Tour de France. One more thing off the list!

Cheers!

Marc

Happy Independence Day!

As you might imagine, the 4th of July doesn't hold much significance here in Germany - it's a pretty low key celebration here. Though it has been a Euro-centric sports extravaganza; what with the Germans whipping the Argentineans the other night, and the Tour de France starting yesterday.

Nothing much new here, but I did take the camera out yesterday to snap some photos of the kids. It was HOT (for Germany) and later in the evening, as things were just starting to cool down I took the kids outside to burn off a little steam. You can't tell from here, but Ian is sitting on his bicycle in this photo.

And one of Leah sitting on her bike.

Both Ian and Leah were pretty tired of pedaling in front of the house by the time I took this one.

After all the biking fun, just to be sure I had worn them out, I had both Ian and Leah run up and down the driveway. They had a good time racing each other, then holding hands on the way down, then holding hands on the way up, and every conceivable permutation thereafter.

They really play pretty well with each other. Catherine and I are so lucky!

I hope all is well out there with everyone. Enjoy your 4th!

Marc