Austria; In the beginning

The morning after we arrived found us bathed in bright sunlight in a large expanse of snowy valley surrounded by the Austrian Alps. Just beautiful and amazingly balmy and warm at between plus 5 and 10 degrees C all week. This is the view from our window.

The apartment in the villa we had rented proved to be most satisfactory and an excellent value at 640 E per week. Check out the rental site her at Abritel where you can find tons of super villa rentals all over Europe (You too can be an "Unlikely Nomad"!) We walked the several hundred metres to the ski hill and got the kids and ourselves all kitted out for our first foray into skiing in Austria... and the kids first foray into skiing...period! Things proved to be a bit wobbly at first but ...

With the help of GPA

....and Daddy (hey, I was driving the camera!) , and ...after a few wipe outs (Riel claimed at one point to have had to dig snow out of his nostrils) and with great enthusiasm ...both kids were zooming in no time! The local "Bobo" park or ski school for kids ran 10 to 3:30 with a break for lunch which mean that with Lily comfortable skiing in the mornings I could head up the mountain with TBG for a little adult skiing. What a treat!! I would have to say the conditions were simply super. Perfect!

...More to come tomorrow!

Who are you?

I LOVE looking at this map...it makes me wonder who you all are way off in the far reaching corners of the world...if you feel like it...who are you? If you click on the globe map on the sidebar and then click "Map with smaller clusters" you will be able to see approximate viewer locations...too cool...

:-)

The beginning of the Journey, Austria here we come!

The train station, one of the cool HABA games-in-a-tin we play on the road, Riel and TBG peering back at us from in betwixt their seats, the oh-my-goodness-are-we-really-going-that-fast train speed of the super efficient German train service, slogging bags...thank goodness for strong 7 year olds...looking at the scenery change and rush by (our favourite thing about taking the train) and LOOK...Guess who we discovered at the Munich train station!!! And finally arriving a mountain from our destination...

Weeewww hoooo!!!!

PS..Is this collage not THE coolest thing...if you click on the collage the it will enlarge so you can get a better look!

*Coff*

We had a fab time, it was so great to see Gpa.

I know I promised pics... but I am so sorry sick...

*Coff coff*... *HACK* ...sniffle snork...*

Gosh I make an awful sick person...

*BLOOOOOW*

Ughhhh. Catch ya soon...I will deliver I promise...

*Achoooo...*

Ski Naked...

I hope I will be doing this next week, (OMG who am I kidding!!!)...and no...that is not me in the picture...Egads would that not be SOOooooo cold? Brr I get goose bumps thinking of it...and well YEAH I AM kidding...

* I would NEVER wear a maroon bikini like that...that color looks atrocious on me...*

*ahem*

I hope a scene that looks like this will be the one that greets us.

MMMmmmm... I see raclette and fondue and lots of red wine in my future...
Austria here we come...!

The kids will both be skiing for the first time ...can't wait it will be SO fun... so check back in next after next week-sure to be some good pics!!

and SHHHH!!!!...

Don't tell anyone but Grandpa Canada is flying over tonight to meet us in Munich tomorrow at the train station to spend the week with us ...and the kids don't know!!

Watch out...*barrelling down slope*... Hang TEN!!

*Ooops is that surfing??*

Hannover's Ghost

I know... I know ...I am SOOO long overdue to post it is silly...

This week I had a little bit of time on my hands...

*What you say!? Time on your hands and you were not writing to/for US!!...*

*Sheesh*

I know and I AM so sorry, well what with getting back into the swing of things and Little Miss Lily was home sick with me for a week thought she seems to be on the mend...for now anyway and runny nose not withstanding...

I am long overdue to show you all a little bit of Hannover and as I was saying I had a little time on my hands so I took the (new) camera into town and snapped a few...

I felt like a bit of a ghost wandering around the old town, as I often do when looking at centuries old architecture...wondering who has trodden the same paths...on which errands, and to meet whom...to pick up which food to cook late on which steaming pots, to visit which milleners and dress or shoe makers and to titter about which gossip...

I think I even looked a bit like a ghost...*Have a look*...

So after dropping the kids off at school I wandered downtown and had a little treat, a coffee here,

and then meandered through the old town area

past the Market Church... here...

...And then really for the first time since we have arrived, I kind of meandered a bit, mapless which, since I am SO directionally challenged, is always a bit nerve wracking (and I suppose since I am so Nomadic a little astounding that I have not actually gotten pemanently lost...) anyway I digress....

The old buildings are beautiful, sort of remind me of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and border on kind of a Glaswegian style of architecture...guess we are not really ALL that far from Scotland after all. So then I meandered down a few allies, discovered a very old church... and town square... that I had so far completely missed, I always love unexpected discoveries...

In this photo of the town sqaure you may notice some very modern sculpture in the thick of all this medieval architecture. Hannover is just sort of like that, due to the extensive damage sustained during the war large sections of it have been rebuilt and there is more modern sculpture here than in any other place I have ever visited...sort of cool...

Thinking I needed to get back to the school soon to pick up the kids I doubled back and ...... and wound my way along the river.

As I turned the corner to back track, the sky put on a particularly dramatic show of gusty clouds back lit with brilliant sun which allowed me to get these two great shots, one of a bronze stature the soldier and his horse, an homage presumably to the first world war and the second shot ... ...of the river Leine.

Not bad huh!!

Think back to Mid December...Christmas cookies...and then some...

We are a little Goo-Goo in the Gaa-Gaa over here about Christmas cookies and I have to say of all the the years of Christmas cooky-ing I have ever done in my life this year topped them all.

First we did a "Cookie-Factory" with Riel's class, myself and some other parents assisted the grade 2 class in baking well over 150 dozen cookies to sell in a cookie booth at the schools annual Christmas celebration. The children raised over 250Euros!

Then we did a gingerbread cookie event in Lily's class and the kids all made gigantic gingerbread shapes decorated with raisins. Another very fun and very concentrated cookie event.

THEN we did several gingerbread events at our home with various family and friends including a gingerbread house with Gma and Gpa at Xmas which was DE-LISH-US I might add (I am such a sucker for anything that involves flour, butter sugar and CANDY) Gosh and I wonder where my kids get it from...

And last but not least, we did painted shortbreads ...well, just because we needed to make MORE cookies and since you all know that I am sort of subtle like that and I like everything to be kinda understated and also because I saw them over at Pioneer Woman Cooks and well she is pretty much one of my heroes theses days...

So we started off with mixing the egg yolk paints, and I love to use cupcake tins for theses sort of (messy) projects, keep all the goo in one place you understand...
We already had the dough made up, so just softened it for a few secs in the M-wave, and then got painting...it all looks pretty serious...not to mention WAY fun... And not too mention way COLORFUL!!! I particularly love the purple and green angel from where-I-know-not...The troops sampling the booty!! Way to go kids!!
Yumm!!! Yep another uber-successful Christmas cookie year!!

Preparing for Christmas; Buche Noel with Riel in 3 languages!

This is what we are aiming for...we made it last year check it out here...and it sure was YUMMY!!! So ...lets see what we end up with...
First we separate the eggs, you know separating eggs is a pretty (yucky) delicate affair if you think about it. So after a little trial and error we got the job done.
Then to measure all the dry ingredients, with a scale and in grams since the recipe is European,
ooh la la...

Then we prepare the pans to bake the genoise (the cakey layer that will be the roll, like in a jelly roll ) for the buche. The we put down backpapiere (German); waxed paper (English); papier de cuisson (French) (we are multi cultural here these days) to make the genoise easy to remove from the baking sheet.
Once we have the genoise cooked we remove it from the waxed paper and then roll it while still warm in a tea towel, let it cool a bit to take a rolled shape, then brush it with a sugar syrup.

Then we layer it with the yummy filling mixture, cream, white chocolate mousse and fresh raspberries...slice it up a bit and arrange it to look log-like and cover it with a yummy white chocolate icing applied to look like bark...really!!!

Delish!!

The finished result and the happy and VERY TALENTED chef!!! Good work Riel!

Bon Appetit!!

Guten Appetite!!

Dig in Everyone!!

Some images of the relief work sculpted on the great doors entering into the Kolner Dome

Still catching up...A gift to us all and a visit to the Kolner Dome...

Finally the day had arrived for us to depart on our tour of the wine region of the Moselle valley in the south Eastern end of Germany, a few hundred kms for our home near Hannover. On route we planned to spend a few days in Cologne (Koln) to explore the Roman museum there and to pay a visit to the famous Kolner Dome.

Situated on the banks of the Rhine river the Dome it is known for its beauty and also as the largest and most impressive cathedral in Europe. At one point in time it was the tallest building in the world. We stayed about 9 kms down river and we could almost see it from there! Having had an unforgettable experience exploring the Duomo in Milan we were most excited to finally get to see the Dome. Check out the city today here.

Cologne, which means "colony", has been an important city since its founding in approximately 50 AD. Two-hundred-fifty years later, as the capital of the Roman province of Germania, "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium", as the city was then known, had a population of 300,000 - about one-third its present size. In Medieval times the city flourished as a center of transportation, trade, education - and religion. An important centre for trade and commerce in the 20th century also meant that it was a target of the allies during the war. It is astonishing that it was not destroyed...

A post air raid photograph.



Finally we arrived in the centre ready to see the dome. The approach up the steps towards the Dome.


We admire the ornate exterior with its soaring Gothic columns and detailed tracery and statuary...

...and as we move inside we felt dwarfed and awed by its towering columns...and hushed interior...

and its soaring vaulted ceiling...as well as the massive pipe organ...

*Boy we feel small*...

*And LOUD* ...

*ShhhhhHHH!!*

Lily and her Dad lighting a candle and having a moment of quiet reflection while leaving a donation for someone less fortunate.

After visiting the treasury stories under the cathedral floor, which among other gilded treasures contain the remains of the three Magi of Christmas story fame, read about it here, and having our minds completely blown away by all of that, we trudged some 500 odd steps up the (claustrophobic) tiny tiny spiral turret en route to the roof... *puff...puff...puff...*

...to peek in at the bell tower halfway up for a breather and to look at the immense bell, the largest free swinging church bell in the world weighing in at a hefty 24,000 kg. One can get an idea of the size by the figure to the right of the photo as well as the gentleman doing maintenance above the bell. The bell was smooth and thick cool brass, and we could not help but wonder about it's sound and fervently hope it was not due to ring anytime in the too near future, as well ponder its manufacture in the day when every scrap of metal would have been melted and forged in a wood or coal fire. We could also not help but speculate as to the degree of engineering involved in its installation hundreds of feet above the church below. Wow.

The kids made it ALL the way up, it was quite a feat, and though we all (read I...) felt a little (panickstricken) vertigo especially as the last little bit involved ascending a rather rickety wrought iron staircase suspended up middle up the final windswept turret some (several kilometers) 100 metres up in the air....(almost as bad as the "dining naked in the high school cafeteria dream") *Shudder*... but we all made it....

Riel enjoying the view...

Needless to say the view was spectacular, and made the climb well worth the effort though the degree of the graffiti was a little astonishing. Seems folks port up their own little bottle of white- out all the way up those stairs to leave their mark on the centuries old hand carved stones.

A gorgeous view of the Rhine river and some of the town far far below.

What an amazing gift for us all.

Some catching up to do...Our trip to Koln (Cologne)

The Beauty of a GPS or global positioning system is that where ever you are, you actually KNOW where you are...so if you see something interesting off in the distance, you can actually identify it, find it and get to it!! So as we were making our way the 500 or so odd kms. to Cologne we saw this, way way off in the distance granted in this photo it is about 100 years ago, but astonishingly it still did look pretty much like this...

So we took this path, on such a gorgeous afternoon and walked way, way, WAY up, until my legs were thanking my behind for sitting down and finally taking a load off when we arrived at the top!!
This enormous monument is called Kaiser Wilhelm Denkmal which is also known as the Ports Westfalica marking the border of Westfalia. You can read more about it here.