Summer Travels Part 1

My parents flew into Frankfurt Saturday, June 25th. I still had one more week of school, but it was neat being able to show them around my city and I was eventually going to meet up with them in Venice. I picked my parents and Lisa and Phil Bauder up from the airport in the morning. Of course their flight was delayed, but I entertained myself with people watching while I waited :) I sat in front of a monitor, looking up every few minutes to see the status. Finally, it said "descending". I was stoked. As soon as I saw my parents coming through the doors, I jumped up and ran towards them, so excited they were finally here.

After hugs and a Starbucks stop, we headed to the ticket machines to get their S-bahn tickets. We jumped on the train and headed into the city. As tired as they were, I had a whole day planned and I couldn't wait to get started. Unfortunately, it was drizzly and not at all like the beautiful weather we had been having, but we were still able to enjoy the day. They came back to my apartment to freshen up and then the Bauders checked into their hotel. We headed out for a tour around the Zeil, the Roemer and over to the Opernplatz Fest near the Old Opera house. There was music and of course, authentic German food. After filling up on schnitzel and rinds-wurst, we headed around the city for more of my walking tour. Lisa and Phil headed back to their hotel to rest up and my parents and I did a bus tour of the city. I hadn't done one since being here, so that was fun. If the weather had been nice, I would have loved to take them on a river boat but we'll just have to do that next time. My dad was about to pass out on the tour bus so I figured we should go back to my apartment so they could take a nap. Three hours later I woke them from their slumber so they could get ready for dinner. We were meeting some of my friends at a restaurant in Sachsenhausen, which is on the other side of the river. I love Sachsenhausen - it reminds me a lot of NW Portland. Anyways, we met up with Stephanie, Ashley and Fiona for some good eats and beer. There were firewords down at the river that night, but we headed back to my apartment to just hand out and then catch some sleep. We spent Sunday walking around a little more and then I took them to the trian station where they left for Paris!

I finished up my week at school, while my parents and the Bauders were exploring Paris, Rome and Pompeii. Saturday morning, I went to breakfast with the gang from school to celebrate Natalie's birthday and then headed to the airport straight after. Flying into Venice at night was beautiful - the waterways were lit up and gorgeous! After figuring out how to catch a bus to Piazzale Roma, I was able to meet my dad on the glass bridge in Venice. They were finishing up dinner next to one of the canals so I joined them in scarfing down a salad and some wine. We made our way back to the hotels so we'd be ready to go early in the morning.

The next day, we hopped on a water taxi that took us over to San Marco where we explored the piazza, snapped pictures of the Basilica and toured Doges Palace. Grabbing some delicious pizza as we wandered through the tiny streets of Venice, we passed several gelato shops, which of course I had to stop at more than once. From San Marco we headed over to San Polo and wandered those streets, eating more gelato and stopping in just about every shop along the way. My dad was loving it :) Dinner was eaten at a restaurant along the Grand Canal and then as the sun started to set, my parents, the Bauders and I took a gondola ride. I highly, HIGHLY recommend this! Although it lasted around 45 minutes, it was only 20 euros a person (because we had 5 people) but it was worth every penny. You go back into the smallest canals and our gondola guy told us history of the city and buildings as we went by. We passed Casanova's house, along with others that I can't remember.

The next day was our last before headed onto Salzburg. I got up early in the morning and met my parents near the train station. We did some more exploring of Santa Croce and Cannaregio and then headed back to catch our train. We were on a mission and pretty much saw most of Venice. The best part was just wandering and getting lost, eventually finding your way to a Basilica or gelato shop or canal. It was an incredible city and I took some beautiful sunset pictures standing on the Ponte Rialto.

First day in Venice!

The new, glass bridge

San Marco

Basilica di San Marco

Piazza San Marco

Mom in front of the palace

The courtyard of Doges Palace

Yum! Gelato!

Parents standing on teh Ponte Rialto

Love the gondolas

Beautiful Venice

Grand Canal

Near where we ate dinner

On the gondola ride

Enjoying the gondola ride

My parents and the Bauders

sunset

We arrived in Salzburg in the late afternoon and Megan was already at our hostel. My parents and the Bauders were staying a block away in a hotel, so it was nice we were so close to each other. We went out for a beer the first night and the next morning we went on the hunt for chocolate croissants and walked around Maribelle Gardens. Lisa and mom did the Sound of Music tour. I had already done it in the winter, although I'm sure it would have been even prettier in the summer. Meg, my dad, Phil and I walked around Salzburg, on the hunt for the perfect apple strudel. We crossed the river into old town, found our strudel, did a little shopping and walked up to the castle. We stopped in at a pub for some Augustiner beer and happened to get stuck for a few hours during a rainstorm. Once the rain stopped, we headed back to the hotel and hostel to wait for my mom and Lisa to finish their tour. We went to the local beer garden for dinner and had some delicious pork, knodels and beer for dinner. Megan and I tried to go out that night, but it was mid-week and most of the bars were closed. There wasn't too much going on, although we did find the Belgian bar that I went to in January. They have the most delicious beer called Delirium. Anyways, we called it a night and the next morning headed to Munich.

Meg and me in Maribelle Garden

Parts of the Sound of Music were filmed here

View of the castle from the gardens

Caught in a rainstorm at a bakery

yummmmm apple strudel

View as we walked up to the castle

Munich is amazing. I love this city. This was my fourth time to the city, but there's always so much to see. I had never done a walking tour before, so Megan and I did the free walking tour by Sandeman's. These are great walking tours and they have them in different cities across Europe. The guides are hilarious and make it informative and entertaining, because they wages come from our tips. So the funnier and more entertaining they are, the more we'll pay them. It's also nice because they recognize that not everyone will be able to pay a lot - we pay what we can afford or what we think it was worth. They want to make the history available to everyone and have a passion for doing these tours. My parents went to Dachau the first day while Megan and I did the walking tour. Dachau was incredible when I went in January. It takes your breath away and is just one of those things you have to do if you're anywhere near Munich. The tour guides there are fantastic as well and so knowledgeable. After our walking tour, Megan and I went back to the Hofbräuhaus to grab some beers and wait in the beer garden for my parents. That place fills up so we wanted to get there early and get seats. It was a beautiful day and perfect sitting outside, sipping on our massive beers. My parents eventually found their way (good job!) and met us for dinner. The spätzle was incredible, as was the half chicken. Yum Yum! My parents did the walking tour the next day and Meg and I just walked around on our own, checking things out and doing a little shopping of course. We met my parents at the train station in the afternoon and hopped on the slow train (cheap train) back to Frankfurt. We got into Frankfurt, stopped by my apartment to freshen up and then went out to meet Fiona for dinner. After dinner we met up with Liz and Tobi for some beers at a bar off the Zeil. It was great sitting around and chatting with everyone, but eventually we headed back to my house since my parents were leaving so early in the morning.

On the walking tour around Munich

The one, the only!

a walk through the market

Everyone waiting to hear if Munich won the bid for the Olympics...

Marian Platz

Meg loving her beer

Mom in the beer garden

where the regulars keep their beer mugs :)

our beer back in Frankfurt

Of course, I, being the great daughter that I am, accompanied them to the airport so they wouldn't get lost :) No, in all reality, I wasn't ready to say goodbye to them at the train station. We stopped for some hot chocolate and a chocolate croissant before saying our goodbyes. It was extremely hard to say goodbye and the tears streaming down my face didn't make it any easier. I miss them so much, but am looking forward to being back in Portland, surrounded by friends and family at Christmas time. In fact, I'm looking at tickets right now...

The last 5 months...

Wow, I just realized I have not written about anything since March!! School was super busy, holidays came and now summer is slowly coming to an end.

April 1st was the end of our unit, Long, Long Ago. To wrap it all up, the kindergarten classes put on a fashion show for parents, grandparents and other family members. Ashley's class and my class dressed up in true 80's fashion! The other two classes did the 70's. It was AWESOME. I'll have to get the video from some of the parents, because they were so cute. We had practiced "the walk" for a week or so before and the kids were adorable when they practiced. We'd move the furniture in our room and turn up the music as they strutted their stuff and then posed, twirled and danced down the "runway." My favorite was when my boys decided to show their muscles! I think the parents had a ton of fun dressing up their kids too, especially the girls. It was a great celebration for our unit coming to an end and the parents and kids loved it.

April was a busy month with the unit coming to an end, unit assessments going home, and we had to fill out our orders for classroom materials for next year. It's not like at home where there is a room with consumable materials. Each classroom has a budget and individual teachers go through the catalogs and order consumable things (paper, paint, pencils, erasers, tape, glue, art materials, etc.) and other classroom things (literacy materials, math materials, games, puzzles, center activities books, unit resources etc. I loved looking through the catalogs but of course I wanted to get everything I saw. I went through my cupboards and as a kindergarten team, we made an inventory of the resources we had between all four classes, so we wouldn't order things we already had or could share. It worked out pretty well, and I'm excited to open my boxes when they get to school!

I had two weeks off for Easter break at the end of April. I hung around Frankfurt and did things with friends for the first week. On the 23rd I left for Istanbul where I was meeting up with Megan Ore and a couple teachers from her work. Istanbul is incredible. Such a neat city and we stayed at a great hostel, right in the center of town. We were literally 3 blocks from the blue mosque, which was gorgeous all lit up at night. We met a lot of great people at that hostel, including the hostel workers, who took us out to some fun bars one night. Meg and I (being cheap) stayed in the 36 bedroom dorm. Yeah, it sounds crazy, and it kind of was, but it was surprisingly quiet. I think people were pretty respectful, because there were so many people in one room. It's a great way to meet people though, and minus the crazy group of boys who came back one night and were dancing around the room/jumping on a bed that eventually broke, we got pretty good sleep. We saw the sights in Istanbul, took a ferry ride to the Asia side, ate some incredible sea food and then took a night bus to Cappadocia, Turkey.

We met some Australian pals who were at our hostel in Istanbul and they joined us in the trip to Cappadocia. We arrived around 7am and were taken straight to the guided tour. We were shown different parts of the town, cave homes, "fairy chimneys" (which are rock formations) and other crazy rock formations. We also stopped at a pottery factory and went through the back rooms to have a look at the artists who were making and painting the pottery. It was amazing! We had the best tour guy - he was an older man and his nick name was Ozzie. He dropped us off at our hostel which was pretty much in a rock cave and we got ready for the night. Ozzie picked us up at 8pm and we headed to Turkish Nights which was a restaurant that served delicious food but also did traditional dance while we ate. When dinner was over, they got everyone up out of their seats dancing inside, outside, around the bonfire. It was so, so, so much fun. With all the wine, beer and traditional Raki we drank that night, I'm surprised we were able to get up at 5am for our hot air balloon ride. I highly, highly recommend taking a hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever done in my life. Although I'm freaked out by heights, it was so solid that you didn't even feel like you were floating through the air. The next day we headed back to Istanbul and had a few more nights there before I headed back to Frankfurt.

Spice Market

Inside the Blue Mosque

Inside the Blue Mosque

Outside of the mosque

Delicious authentic food!

A few beers at the hostel bar!

On the Asia side!

Cappadocia, Turkey

Meg and me

On a hike..

crazy rock homes

ventilation at the underground city

more cave homes

The gang at Turkish Nights

Australian pals, tour guide and Meg

hot air balloon ride

amazing

so so high up

a little nervous because we're so high!

fairy chimneys

Grand Bizarre

Fish Market

Restaurant overlooking the water

Most delicious seafood...yum!

Our last night

The Apple Wine Express goes all around Frankfurt

Rik, Ashley, Simon and Fiona on the Apple Wine Express

Here's a look of the trolley

A Friday night at Friedberger Platz - me, Steph, Tobi, Brooke, Fiona and Ash

We love the platz!

my kiddos enjoying the sunshine

May was a busy month too. I started my report cards somewhat early, in hopes that I would be done by June, because we had several long weekends. I didn't want to spend my long weekends writing reports, and I did pretty well. Our head (my principal) also did a long observation, which was pretty intense. I was prepared, and my kids did a great job that day being engaged, but, no matter how well I am prepared, I'm always nervous when someone comes in to watch. It went really well though and I was glad to get that over with! The end of May was filled with student led conferences and Sports Day and then we had a long weekend at the beginning of June. We had another bier bike adventure and spent many afternoons at Friedberger Platz! The Apple Wine Express is a little trolley that goes around the city and you get to drink Frankfurt's traditional apple wine and eat pretzels while getting a glimpse of different areas in the city. It's a great thing to do when people come and visit :)

We went to Santander, Spain for Ashley's bachelorette party during our long weekend. I LOVE Spain. The food, the people, the scenery, the beaches. It was HOT and all of us got majorly sunburned (bad, I know) but we couldn't help but lay on the beach and play in the water for hours. Santander is in the Northern part of Spain and it's a coastal town. It's not very touristy, which I loved. They had a great town, wonderful food and a good night life. Our first night there we went all out, dressed Ashley up and wore matching t-shirts. I'll have to post some pictures. It was a really fun night. The next day was spent mainly at the beach and in the town shopping :) We had the most delicious ice cream and Sangria (not together) and had the best girls weekend celebrating Ashley. It was perfect timing too, because reports were just about done and we all needed the holiday.

We went straight for the beach!

AMAZING ice cream!

Ready for our first night out

Cheers!

Suck for a buck...Ashley trying to sell her lollies for a euro!

Girls just want to have fun!

the girls :)

Santander, Spain

the port

beautiful!

June came and went in a flash. We had a kindergarten field trip to the Palmengarten, and my kids loved it. It fit perfectly with our "Spring into Life" unit and they were so cute with their magnifying glasses, checking out the plants, flowers and birds. We had 3 long weekends in June which were filled with traveling, day trips and fun around Frankfurt. The JP Morgan run was on June 15th. 68,500 runners and walkers participated. It was crazy but so much fun, and a great way to see the city. We had about 15 staff members do the race and I ran with Brooke. If it wasn't for Brooke, I would have walked after the first kilometer. We ran the whole thing in around 35 minutes. I thought I was going to die when we crossed the finish line...haha When running I kept giving myself landmarks, thinking "Okay, when we get to that corner, I'm going to stop" and just as I would think about stopping, Brooke would tell me to keep going or I'd get another surge of energy. It's amazing what you can accomplish, especially when you're doing it with someone else! We kept each other going with was great, and I'm so proud of everyone who participated. Lizzy was 8 months pregnant and walked the whole thing too!

Stephanie, me and Brooke at Schweizer Strasse Fest!!

Kindergarten goes to the Palmengarten!

Listening to our tour guide

Walking through the green houses

Half of my kiddos

Jacob loving the airplane

Paul and Ben just hanging out

They had amazing play structures!

Of course, my boys are climbing on top of the house...

getting ready for the Palmengarten

right when we arrived

pointing at the baby ducks in the pond

Yep, these are some of my boys...true personalities are shining through :)

Awesome chairs in the green area where we ate lunch

Clearly keeping a watchful eye on the munchkins

They love to play!

Probably making a beeline for my boys hanging from trees or something :)

Palmengarten playground

Frankfurt skyline..down by the river

Ashley, me and Sandra on the bier bike!!

Ash and I laughing at the ridiculous pictures we were taking!

Bier goggles and bier bike

Our sober driver :)

Bier bike crew!

The end of June was filled with International Day and spring shows. The kindergartens did the play "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle. We took the book and re-wrote it into a play and added songs. They were so adorable and did a wonderful job. We had a lot of BBQ's, parties and get-togethers those last few weeks of school. It was busy and the weather was beautiful so there was a lot of going out after work to bars along the river and down by the Zeil. The last day of school was on Friday, July 1st, which also happened to be Natalie's birthday. We went to breakfast with everyone Saturday morning to celebrate her birthday, and I'm really excited because it's a great breakfast place that's super close to my house. I flew out that afternoon to meet my parents in Venice. They had flown into Frankfurt the weekend before and were here for a day and a half before starting their holiday in Paris. It was so much fun having them in Frankfurt. I got to play tour guide and there were a ton of festivals going on at the time. I love that about Frankfurt - even in the winter - but almost every weekend in the summer, there's some sort of festival somewhere in the city. Usually it's along the river, by the Oprah house or in a platz here or there.

More to come about the holidays...I'm tired of writing and you're probably tired of reading :) To be continued...