Greek Island Cruise Part Two

Our first port was Split, Croatia. For all ports except Athens and Olympia, I had decided we would do sight-seeing on our own without a tour or excursion. We woke up, had some breakfast at the buffet, and were off the ship by 8:30 am (one of the first people off the ship - this became a regular trend). It was an easy walk from the port to the town. In Split the main thing I wanted to see was the town itself. Within the town is an old walled-in area called Diocletian's Palace. It was a palace created for a retired Roman Emperor. There are some areas where you can see the Roman influence of architecture. Within the walls of the palace is basically the "Old Town" of Split. You can see everything from shops, cafes, markets to a cathedral, old bell tower, and run down homes.

I will say taking a tour of some sort through this area would have been more informative. We did have Rick Steves to guide us, so we kind of got the jest of what things were. But (especially in hind sight after doing other places with tours) I'm sure we would have learned a lot more and understood what we were seeing better if we had someone explaining/describing it. There were a lot of people selling walking tours all through Split, so we could have easily purchased one. At the time though, I was happy just wandering around and seeing things as we were on our own. We had wandered through the maze of alleys and corridors which make up the Old Town. We had also weaved through the open-air market, where I bought a neat coral bracelet. We had covered a lot of ground, but it was only noon. We made our way back to a cafe we had walked past earlier. This cafe was in a prime people watching location, and there was a local group of men who were singing right next to the cafe. I ordered some wine and Josh had a beer, and we happily sat people watching for an hour. This was probably one of the highlights of the day for me. I felt as if it made us "get a feel" for Split... or maybe that was the wine talking... either way, it made for an enjoyable afternoon.

After our afternoon drink, we decided to go back to the ship. I was happy with the sightseeing we had done, I couldn't think of anything more I wanted to do/see, and we were starving. Rick Steves didn't offer any suggestions for local food we had to try, and the appeal of food I'd already paid for was high. So we went back to the ship and had a late lunch. After our lunch settled, Josh wanted to go do the gym. Not my favorite thing, but I agreed to go with him. I will say, riding a stationary bike is much more enjoyable when you've got the view to go with it. However... there were people like Josh who were there to workout because they enjoy it/part of their routine/habit. There were people like me who were there to earn more dessert. And then there were meatheads. There were guys there who were realllllyyy into their workout and doing some major weight lifting. I get that there are people who are really into fitness or who are doing fitness competitions, and they need/want to keep up while on vacation. I get that and I respect it. However... packing weight lifting gloves for your vacation? That puts you in the meathead category. Add to my judgement that the gym on this ship was tiny. Very tiny. They had a lot of equipment that could keep most people happy, but the room itself was quite small.

After our workout we went and walked a few miles around the ship on the outdoor track. Then we showered and got ready for dinner. This sort of became our new routine while on the cruise - sight-see, come back, workout, then shower and dinner. That night dinner was amazing (they all were). After dinner we went to see the show that night, which was an all male Motown singing group. It was so much fun! The singers were talented both in song and dance. It made me think of my parents as they really would have enjoyed the show. After the show we decided to head to bed - we were tired and tomorrow was another day of exploring.

Day two lead us to Corfu, Greece. This was another port where we were going to explore on our own, and again, we were one of the first ones off the ship. Rick Steves said you could walk from the port to the town within 20 minutes - usually I subtract about 5-10 minutes from his time suggestions because of Josh's and my pace. But, the ship was offering a shuttle bus for a reasonable fee, and they stated the walk was closer to 30 minutes. We decided to take the shuttle bus, and I'm glad we did because it dropped us off right in the heart of town. Corfu is the greenest of the islands, and the day we were there it was sunny, hot, and humid. A nice change from the rain and chill we'd had in Germany. The island has two fortresses (one old, one new) on either side of the Old Town area. Our bus dropped us off right in front of the Old Fortress, so that is where we started.

So I will admit... the heat got to me that morning. We had gone from chilly fall weather back to hot (hot for me at least) and I most definitely was not acclimated to it. I was sweating, I was hot, and most of all I was NOT enjoying climbing around the ruins of the fortress. So. I climbed around the lower levels with Josh, but then I sat at a cafe and had a Coke while he hiked to the top.

After seeing the Old Fortress, we went through the Old Town, which like the Old Town in Split was a maze of winding streets. The area was full of little shops, mainly shops selling tourist junk. When I looked at a map, I thought the Old Town was going to be huge. As it turns out... it wasn't. After a few loops we figured out when/where we were overlapping areas we've already walked. We did buy some lunch from a little bakery - I got a ham and cheese "pie" - ham and cheese in phyllo dough, Josh got a spinich and feta pie. Both of them were amazing. We continued our stroll from the Old Town out along the bay. We saw the New Fortress, but didn't feel like going up it.

Once again, by afternoon we'd seen all we wanted to see and headed back to the ship for a late lunch. After our lunch I convinced Josh just to walk with me around the track versus competing with the meatheads in the gym. After we had walked a few miles, Josh decided he wanted to run for a bit, and told me he would catch up with me in a moment. The entertaining part about the ship's track is you pass by the same people over and over again. There was a group of older women from Liverpool talking loudly with a very strong accent (thank you Beatles for helping me to know that accent). After Josh started running, I passed by these ladies, and I heard one of them say, "Well, it looks like 'ee just up'an' left 'er, didn' 'ee?!" I giggled about that for the rest of my walk.

We were ready for dinner a little early, and I had seen on the ship's program (which listed all of the information about the day and what activities were happening during the day) there was going to be country music trivia. I convinced Josh to go do trivia with me. For this trivia they played a little 5-10 second snip-it of a song, and you had to write down what the title of the song was. At the end they read off the answers, and the winner got a prize. This girl got 16 our of 18 songs right. Whoop whoop, don't mess with Montana. Doing my father proud. Our prize was a Royal Caribbean key chain (um... yay!), but I thought the trivia was a lot of fun. Trivia before dinner became our new nightly ritual.

That evening the show we went to after dinner was a dance performance - I loved every minute of it. Josh said it was good, but I think he was being a good sport for my sake. It was neat to see all the different styles of dance the performers did. After the show, we (once again) decided to head for bed. The day of walking around wore us out.

The next morning we slept in because there wasn't a port that day - we were having a day at sea. Josh and I usually are up around 4:30 to get ready for work (I know, ugh). Being creatures of habit, even though our room didn't have any natural light, we were both awake by 6. We took our time getting ready, and then went to have breakfast in the main dining room. We were seated with some fellow American travelers, and we recieved great input and advice about cruising. After our breakfast we went to do some trivia, but we were the only people there... so of course we won. Ha ha. But we actually got to spend some time talking to the gal who was running the trivia, and it was interesting to hear her story of how she started working on the ship. The highlight of our morning was playing Bingo. That's right, Bingo. We bought cards to play in four games. We didn't win, and we were the youngest people there (which was another re-occurring theme on this cruise - most of the people were retirees, and there were only a small handful of families, and maybe a small handful of younger couples like us). But, despite this, Bingo was a lot of fun. After lunch we went to try to find a place to relax in the sun. Outside was packed with people sunbathing - it was hard to find a chair anywhere! All of the upper decks near the track and pool were packed, so we went to a lower deck and sat. I read a book while Josh took a nap in the sun. Josh went off to work out, but I stayed to hang out in the sun. Later we met up at the indoor adult only pool to sit in the hot tub. We went to do trivia that night before dinner, a fun ritual. After dinner we decided to get a drink and sit outside before the show. The show that night was a Beach Boys cover band, which was a lot of fun to listen to. After the show we went back outside and watched part of a movie that was showing on the outdoor screen. It was starting to get windy, so we decided to head in and go to bed... and get ready for our next port in Crete.

Greek Island Cruise Part One

We got home from our cruise on Monday. Yesterday was a day full of laundry, unpacking, and running errands. I was able to upload pictures to Facebook, but otherwise didn't spend any time online. I have a feeling this post is going to be long... or somehow broken up into multiple posts. I have a LOT to say. Starting with...

I am a planner, as I have said (and as you should know by now). When I decided I wanted to take a cruise, I didn't take any decisions lightly. Everything I picked or planned had a lot of research and planning that went into it. Starting with which cruise we were going to take. I had looked into a lot of different itineraries for different cruise lines. Originally I wasn't sure of what ports I wanted to visit - which turned into researching what was at different ports and doing some Google image searches. I know that sounds silly, but I am a visual person, and if I "see" what a place looks like my desire to go there can be swayed. In all honesty, when I started searching for cruises I thought I was going to take a more "traditional" Mediterranean cruise, which is usually a week long cruise which has stops in Rome, Barcelona, and then a shifting number of stops in France and Italy. But, a lot of the stops in Italy were places we've already visited. Which is why I looked to Greek cruises. Josh is a big fan of Greek mythology and Greek antiquities, so it seemed a good place to go. Looking into the ports, I knew I wanted to see Santorini, Mykonos, Athens, and Olympia. For the timing of the cruise I wanted one which wasn't in peak season (end of Sept until April-ish) for a cheaper price and for less people (since kids are back in school) - this timing also worked out better for both of us with work. After looking into different cruise lines and asking people who have cruised before, I decided I wanted to go with a US-based cruise line. My reasoning for this (which may sound silly) was because I wanted the shows to be in English. I'm a huge drama/Broadway/theater nerd/junkie, and I was excited about seeing shows, any shows, even if they were crappy or lame. I wanted to be able to enjoy them. Again, this sounds silly, but I deal with a language barrier on a daily basis. When going on vacation, I wanted the opportunity to NOT have to think/struggle to communicate. I realize that on pretty much all cruise lines (especially those with European sailings) things are multilingual. But, I didn't want to have to worry about language at all, period. I should add a note here that I have read multiple blogs of people who have sailed on non-US cruise lines (such as MSC or Costa, which are Italian) and have had a great time with not problems at all with language. But, I still wanted to stick with a US company, which left our cruising options (for the time/area I wanted) to Royal Caribbean or Norwegian. So in the end I selected our cruise on Royal Caribbean because of the ports and the timing of the cruise.

Our ship was Legend of the Seas, which is an older ship (which has been refurbished. I thought the interior looked fabulous), so it is on the smaller side when compared to other ships (especially those which go in the Caribbean or Bahamas). A lot of other passengers made comments about it being a smaller ship and not having as many amenities as other ships. Personally, I was happy with things the way they were. The fact that there was only two pools instead of seven wasn't going to ruin my vacation. As it was, I was impressed by everything which was on-board. Cruise ships really are like a floating city.

Now in true Kirsten form, I really prepared for our cruise. I looked at the Royal Caribbean website. I asked friends who had cruised. I read countless blogs and websites to get tips on what to do/not to do. This helped me to feel prepared and helped me to figure out what to pack. I knew for our cruise we would have two formal nights, and a few "smart casual" nights (which Royal Caribbean defines as skirts/dress pants for ladies, dress pants but not a suit for men. However... Josh wore nice dark denim jeans for two of the smart casual nights and no one said a word). I also looked into the weather (which it was hard to figure the weather for a port 10 days ahead of time) and there was a wide range of temperatures and the possibility of rain. I wanted to have enough clothes, but I didn't want to over-pack as so many people talked about how small cruise ship rooms are and how there is no space. For anyone who is looking to cruise - I wore on the ship a pair of jeans and a light fleece jacket. I packed one pair of jeans, three skirts, two sun dresses, four cocktail dresses, two t-shirts, five tank tops, one lighter "cute" jacket, two sweaters, a swimsuit, a swim suit cover-up, one work-out outfit, one pair athletic shoes, two pairs of gladiator sandals, one comfy pair of flats, one pair of Toms flats, and one pair of dressy flats. Yes, a lot of shoes. And. I would not have changed a single thing about how I packed. It was the perfect amount. I had a variety of of things I could wear to any of the dinners. I had purposely packed in a way where I could mix-match and re-wear things. With my variety of shoes I felt I could make more outfits, and if one day a pair of shoes started to rub my feet the wrong way I could just switch out for another pair. Also - just a note for anyone traveling in Europe - pack skirts instead of shorts. Shorts will mark you as an American tourist in two seconds flat. I have recently discovered that skirts are an extremely comfortable alternative to shorts, and it makes you appear a bit more put together. Just sayin'. Anyways. I felt I didn't over-pack. I did pack a gallon Ziplock full of any possible medication we could have needed - anything from Tums to Immodium, ibuprofen, allergy meds, cold meds. Thank goodness we didn't need any of them, but I'm glad I had them with me. Two suggestions I read online which I did forget to pack and I wish I had - card games and a weight/clip for the shower curtain. I fully intended to pack Uno and a deck of cards for our trip, but forgot (more on this later). I had also read suggestions of bringing a clip to put on the bottom of the shower curtain to weight it down/help keep it in place. I thought this was a good idea, but forgot to bring it. I personally didn't have any problems, but with the tiny shower Josh had issues with the shower curtain sticking to his butt/belly. Enough said.

My original plan had been to pack the weekend before we left (we flew out on a Thursday). However, our guest was visiting (which I didn't know was going to happen until two weeks before). Not a big deal, I just ended up doing my packing on Wednesday, the day before. Had I been smart, I would have started packing Tuesday night. I think I just needed an extra bit of time to lay everything out and check/re-check my list. It may have also helped if I had made a packing list at least a week prior so I could remember to add items to the list (such as card games). As it was, I packed on Wednesday and left Josh's items laying out for him to "examine" (I didn't want to pack for him necessarily, but I wanted to "suggest" things for him to wear on the trip, like polo shirts versus t-shirts). Our flight didn't leave Thursday until the afternoon, so in the morning I met a friend for coffee, leaving Josh to pack. When I got home from coffee he wasn't completely packed - sigh. After getting the rest of our items together, I started to get really paranoid about our packing. We were flying on Ryanair, and they are very strict about luggage. I had paid for the heaviest possible checked bag, but if your bag is heavy when you check-in it is a hefty fee. They are also very strict about the size/weight of carry-on luggage. At first Josh and I were going to share the checked bag, I was going to have a small roller carry-on bag, and Josh was going to use his large backpack as a carry on. But... about an hour before we were going to leave the house I was panicking about our luggage being heavy/too much... So I went online and ended up paying to for a second checked bag. A bit more expensive, but it gave me peace of mind, and in the end I'm glad we had extra space. However, when I was looking for airfare I was debating Ryanair versus flying on Lufthansa out of Frankfurt airport. Ryanair is usually a low-cost airline, but because of the timing (flying to Venice right before a long weekend, Columbus Day) the flight was more expensive than usual. We could have flown on Lufthansa out of Frankfurt for a bit more money, but the drive to the Frankfurt airport is longer, parking is more expensive... but we would have each gotten a free checked bag. I picked Ryanair. It worked out fine, but if I had it to do over again I think I would have gone with Lufthansa. Flying on Ryanair just makes me feel like I'm a cow being herded with a group of other panicked, stupid cows. Moo.

After my packing panic, we made it to the airport and on our flight with plenty of time to spare. Our flight to Venice was a bit rough - to the point where Josh was laughing at me as I gripped his hand in fright. But. We made it in one piece. We took a bus from the airport into Venice (about an hour ride). I had booked our hotel based on it's location - it was near the plaza where the bus was going to drop us off, and it was also close to the cruise terminal. I had used Google maps to get directions, but of course they weren't very helpful, and we ended up asking for directions multiple times. We walked around for a good twenty minutes before we finally found our hotel (which had been right in front of us the whole time). I had also chosen our hotel based on the price - it was at least 100 Euros cheaper than other hotels in the area. As soon as we got checked in to the hotel, I could see why it was cheaper. The hotel was clean, which in the end is all that matters, but it appeared to be an old prison/hospital/asylum which had been converted into a hotel. There were bars over all of the windows, and it is hard to describe, but you could tell by the layout of the hotel that it had once been something other than a hotel. This was slightly creepy... but we were only using the hotel as a stop-over. We found dinner - amazing Italian pizza and house wine, how I have missed you - and then settled in for the night.

The next morning we were up and ready to go early. We check out of our hotel and decided to make our way to the cruise terminal. We were very early - my cruise documents said our check-in could begin at 11 am. However, we didn't want to risk wandering around Venice, getting lost, and being late. So we found the cruise terminal and could see our ship - exciting!!! Josh wandered around (I think he was starting to get excited) while I sat on a bench and read. After an hour of waiting, I decided to see if we could start check-in early. They let us drop off our luggage, and then we went inside the terminal to check-in. Our check-in was complete and we were handed our SeaPass (ID card that also is a room key/ship charge card). We were on board the ship by 10:30 am. Our room wasn't going to be ready until 1, so we decided to explore the ship. This is probably because it was my first time on a cruise, but I was impressed with how beautiful the ship was. We saw the main public areas, looked over the shops and the casino, then looked at the adult only pool as well as the outdoor pool and track.

The indoor adult only pool. I spent a lot of time in these chairs with my Kindle. 

The ship opened up the buffet at 11:30, so we went to have lunch. Anyone who has been on a cruise, or in all of the things I read everyone raved about the food. Nothing prepared me for the food. It is amazing. Period. There is such a wide variety of things! Healthy options, junk food, American food, ethnic food... all of it looks, smells, tastes amazing. Food EVERYWHERE. Nom nom. After one trip through the buffet (where I was a good girl and only had one plate full of mostly healthy choices) I could see how most people gain about ten pounds on a cruise. We still had some time to kill before our room was ready, so we went back outside. By the outdoor pool there was a large movie screen, and they had started to play The Great Gatsby. We lounged in deck chairs and watched the movie for about 45 minutes before we went to our room. 

Our room - but I took this photo on our last day, so obviously it was much neater/crisper right after it had been cleaned. 

I had done an equal amount of research when I picked our room. I picked an interior room, but I picked the largest interior room available. Neither Josh or I are claustrophobic, so we really didn't care if we had a window. We also weren't worried about the lack of sunlight/time of day issues (we set an alarm every night so we'd get up in the morning. Problem solved). I also went into this with the attitude that our room was just a place were we would store our stuff and sleep. Which was basically what it was. We didn't spent much time in our room, even on the days when we were "at sea." I was prepared for a tiny room (one of the reasons I had bought the largest interior room), but I thought our room was a good size. I think anyone who thinks a cruise ship room is small has obviously not spent time in a European hotel room. We had plenty of storage space and plenty of room to move around. I thought the size of our room was just fine. In fact, for our next cruise I want to compare the square footage of our room to that of some of the cheaper rooms. I would be willing to go down a bit in size really. I had also picked our room to be on an upper deck - I just didn't like the idea of being at the bottom of the ship. I figured it would be asking to get sea-sick. I was happy with our location - we only had to walk up one deck to get to the buffet, pools, and gym. I felt our room was quiet as well. So, good job Kirsten with room selection. 

We saw our room, but our luggage wasn't there yet. My online research had suggested having your carry on bag with a change of clothes/swimming suit since it can take awhile for your bags to get there. We had packed some nicer "dinner" clothes, swimming suits, and other items needed to get ready with us, however we didn't need them. Dinner the first night was casual, so we never changed clothes. Venice was too cold and windy to get in the pool. But, I am glad we had things with us as an option. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring. When it was time for the ship to leave we went out on the deck (along with most of the other passengers). There was a DJ who was playing music. Some people were dancing, some people were in the pool (I thought it was a little too cold for that), and some people were already on their way to having a good buzz. 

Here I will interject my thoughts on beverages on the ship. On the ship you can have coffee, tea, water, iced tea, lemonade, and milk for free. In fact there were multiple beverage stations where you could grab something to drink as you were sitting by the pool or lounge area - hellllooooo coffee. I was a happy girl. Everything else had a charge. There were different beverage packages you could buy which, for a price, you could have unlimited beverages (of non-alcoholic and alcoholic nature). True to form... I researched the drink/wine/beer menu online and did some price comparison. Basically, for us to "break even" by purchasing a beverage package, we would each have to consume around 5-6 alcoholic drinks every day. It isn't that we couldn't have that much to drink, we easily could. But I just couldn't see myself coming in from a full day of sight-seeing and then drinking that much. I also didn't want to put myself in the frame of mind where I wanted to "get the most" out of my package, which I could have seen myself doing. I had read a blog post where a woman had done just that and woke up hungover for more than one port. Hmm. No thanks. I explained my reasoning to Josh, and basically told him if we drank enough to equal the cost (or what would have been the cost) of a beverage package, then we're the fools and we'd know for next time. I just couldn't justify paying $90 every day for unlimited beverages. I'm not that much of a lush, and I am cheap. As it was... we ordered a bottle of wine at dinner (averaging about $40 per bottle. Ouch) and a bottle would last us for two dinners. We had a total of four bottles of wine. Josh had a scotch during one show and a beer at another. I had one cocktail at a show and a Sprite during another. Personally... I was happy with that. There were times where I maybe could have gone for another cocktail or another glass of wine, but the reasons I chose not to were more because of calories rather than money concerns. So for us, no beverage package was the smart choice, I was happy with it. I think it would be different if we were on a cruise with more sea days where we were hanging out by the pool, or if we were in hotter weather, or if we were there with friends. All these things could lead to more beverages. But for me, I was happy with our decision. 

Back to our Venice departure - Josh and I chose to just enjoy the scenery as the ship left Venice. It was actually a neat sight - the ship goes up through a channel past the heart of Venice. It made for some amazing photos.

 Our dinner time was assigned for 6, which I was happy about - the other possible dinner time was 8:30, which is too late for my stomach. I was a bit nervous about the whole thing of being assigned a dinner time at a certain table with people. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it. Would this be awkward? What if we were assigned to sit with some awful people? Or would we be better off sticking to the buffet? We actually really enjoyed our dinner arrangement. We were seated at a table of ten, and the other eight people were all interesting couples from a variety of places. It was kind of nice at the end of each day to have dinner with familiar faces and ask how their day was, what they did, how they liked the port. We had some characters at our table, including Barbara and Rudy, a retired couple from Queens (with the full accent) who were in their late 70s. They were sweet, and just a hoot to talk to. Another couple was Alba and Henry from Texas, also retired, and Alba had a lot of Hispanic sass. It made each dinner entertaining. The food at dinner - wowza!! A full new menu each night with amazing things. So much good food. I tend to be a person who usually picks chicken and fish, but I ate a lot of beef - and it was all fantastic. I tended to stick to the routine of not having bread, only having one starter, one entree, and dessert (to attempt to NOT gain weight), but there were many people at our table who ordered multiple starters, multiple entrees, and multiple desserts. Rudy ordered two desserts and ice cream every night (my hero). Again, I could see how people gain weight - but ohhhhhh so delicious. 

When we got back to our room after dinner our bags were there, so we unpacked and settled in for the night. Again, I thought our room had plenty of space, even with our luggage. I had been worried about sea-sickness. I've never been sea sick before and I've spent plenty of time out on the water in boats, but they've all been small boats. I wasn't sure how I would feel when the ship started moving. I think for the first few hours (especially at dinner) I just felt weird because I could feel the ship moving and I could we were moving when I looked outside. I never felt sick, just weird. But I adjusted to this quickly, and in fact I never got sick on our whole trip. When I laid down that night I only noticed the movement a bit, but quickly fell asleep. When we woke up the next morning, we were in our first port!

Stuttgart Oktoberfest and a Random Visitor

By random visitor, I mean random. Katie is the older sister of my high school ex-boyfriend. Yup. That sounds a little weird. It actually turned out to be wonderful. I "dated" Dan when we were 14, so I feel it deserves quotation marks. He's actually the only ex-boyfriend I have who I still talk to. Dan and I are still good friends. His sister Katie had messaged me a few weeks ago asking how close I lived to Frankfurt as she had a few days on either end of a trip to Croatia. I had a chance to see her twice in one week. When she first arrived in Germany I took her for the day to see Koln and Trier, two "standards." She only had one full day at our house, and we made the most of it. This past weekend Katie was at our house hanging out until she left to go back to the states. Fall has come to Germany, and with it has come the dark, rainy, cool weather. I don't mind, but sometimes it can make travel plans a pain. After presenting Katie with a bunch of options, we took her to Burg Eltz castle. We've seen Burg Eltz before, but it was a castle which was in close driving distance. I think Katie enjoyed herself. It was actually neat to see the castle in wet, misty weather, which was much different from the sunny day we'd experienced before. Honestly it was just nice to spend some time with a familiar face from home, despite it being a touch random.

A gal I work with invited us to join her and her husband at the Stuttgart Oktoberfest. Well, it's actually called Stuttgart Constatter Volksfest. Oktoberfest. They had bought tickets for a beer tent, and had invited us and my friend Kristy. Everyone says Stuttgart is THE Oktoberfest to go to. We quickly accepted this invitation.

We went to Oktoberfest in Munich last year, and it was fun. Crowded and crazy, but fun. We did notice that everyone was wearing dirndls and lederhosen. We were in the minority wearing our jeans and t-shirts. Josh and I decided to invest in some "German" clothing for this festival. I think we look hilarious and awesome. We all met up in Stuttgart and first wandered around taking it all in. This looked similar to Oktoberfest (really all German festivals) - a carnival, a midway, games, food. It is much smaller than the Oktoberfest in Munich, but I liked it. It wasn't as crowded or crazy. We then went to the beer tent and got settled in. If you think you couldn't sit down and drink liters upon liters of beer for hours on end... you're wrong. You just haven't tried in the right atmosphere. I'll let you figure out the rest of our day through pictures...

And here I am winning a chugging contest... making Montana and my mother proud.

Josh and I both agreed Stuttgart was much more fun than Munich (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the company we had). Many Americans in our area claim Stuttgart is better than Munich, and I have to agree. It is our new favorite, and we are already making plans to go back next year.

I hope my beer-infused pictures were enough to make up for my lack of posting. We leave Thursday for our Greek island cruise - excited doesn't even begin to cover it. Just know after this break/silence there will be pictures and details of the cruise posted.

My List of Guidelines for My Family

I have a much more fun blog post in the works about some of our recent adventures. However, I will get to that in a moment.

I had a reminder this weekend about the frustration of communicating with family while I am overseas. By now I feel I have gotten used to the way things are. I email with people, or use Facebook as a form of communication. I regularly Skype with my parents (and Skype is out there for whomever else wants to use it). I can call people, but for friends of mine it usually involves making "a date" where we set aside a time when I can call that we will both be awake and free. I call family with less formality, and my parents (thankfully) call me or text my cell phone. Aside from a few minor things which somehow get lost in translation (like my cousin being pregnant. I found out when I was home in August that my cousin was about six months pregnant and I swear no one told me, even though my mom swears she did tell me) I feel I'm mostly in the loop.

Except this weekend. My parents are avid football fans and went to the UM homecoming game (like they always do). At the game they bought some noodle bowls from a vendor to have for lunch. Within about thirty minutes my mom says she started to feel sick. She spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday morning being miserably sick. On Sunday afternoon my dad took her to the hospital because she was feeling so terrible. They decided to admit her to the hospital Sunday afternoon. Note here that no email, text, or phone call was made to me. On Monday a doctor was examining my mom and thought part of her pain was because of her appendix. The doctor explained that sometimes when your intestines get infected or riled up, it can cause the appendix to flare. However, to confirm this was happening, they needed a CT scan, and the CT scanner at the hospital in Polson wasn't working (they don't having a general surgeon either, so there was no one to remove the appendix). It was decided my mom would be transported via ambulance down to Missoula to have the CT scan and probably surgery. Note again, no email, text, or phone call to Kirsten.

It was at this point on Monday (Monday evening for me) I decided to call my mom. Normally I talk to my mom everyday, but over the weekend we had someone visiting us (more on that in another post) and I hadn't called her. She never called me either, and I assumed she knew our guest was here and she'd just talk to me later. I called her work (normal for me) and never got an answer. Confused, I decided to call her cell phone. She answered, sounding tired and horrible. When I asked her what she was doing, she explained what was going on before putting my dad on the phone (I believe because she was too weak to talk). My dad filled me in on more details.

I was upset. My mom (who is superwoman) was sick, 6,000 miles away, and there was nothing I could do about it. Also, I was angry. Why did no one tell me? Obviously my mom really wasn't in a position to call me, but why didn't my dad? There really wasn't an answer for me. The more I thought about the gravity of the situation, the more angry I got. I want and need to be informed of things which go on. My mother being hospitalized falls under the category of things which require a phone call. I had told my dad I was going to make a list for him of things which require that I am informed. He laughed. I'm not joking.

My mom did end up having her appendix out, and the doctors told her it probably was her appendix which was causing most of her food poisoning symptoms/response. So, it was something which needed to happen anyway. She is doing well and will hopefully be released from the hospital today.

Here I present the guidelines for my family of what sort of life events require what sort of communication.

Email 
Email is an appropriate form of communication for the following things:

• Setting up a phone or Skype date 
• Telling me silly or fun anecdotal stories about what has been going on 
• Giving me a generalized "life update" as long as nothing major (marriage proposal, pregnancy, illness, death) has occured 
• Discussing details of things talked about in earlier emails/phone conversations 
• Passing on information (flight details, hotel reservations, ect) 
• Basically use email like you would if you were calling me in the states just to chat for a bit

Facebook 
Facebook is more appropriate for my cousins or friends. But it is also an appropriate form of communication for the following things:

• All of the things which applied to email can be applied to Facebook 
• If you want a fast response from me because you can see I am online 
• During the day I tend to check Facebook more than my email, so if there is some sort of emergency you can use this to tell me to call home or to call someone and there's a good chance I'll see it within a few hours (before I see my email)
• Unless you are some random friend I haven't spoken to in years, Facebook is NOT the medium in which to tell me you are engaged or pregnant. Seriously. Nothing hurts more than to find out in this way when I know that back in the states I would have gotten a personal phone call before the rest of the world found out. 

Phone Call 
All of the following are circumstances which require that I be informed through a phone call - or that I am texted being told to call someone:

• Sudden serious illness or a serious diagnosis of something
• Hospitalization
•  Emergency surgery 
• Outcomes of surgeries or treatments 
• Serious injury 
• Births 
• Deaths 
• Engagements 
• Major life events
• Any news (happy, exciting, sad) which you (under normal circumstances) would have called to tell me about when I lived in the states

You may laugh at my guidelines. And that's fine, I am a bit dramatic. But I'm being serious. I don't think I can properly explain to you what it feels like to be left out of the loop. It is infuriating, frustrating, and hurtful at the same time. It makes you feel as if you aren't important enough to know what is going on. It is a whole new level of powerlessness. I also can't explain to you how it feels to learn about something on Facebook/in an email (something which I should have gotten a phone call about) and then to have to wait six to eight hours for it to be an appropriate time to call back to the states. So laugh if you must, but please respect my guidelines.

Planning Thanksgiving - Part One

What I should be doing right now is working on my comprehensive exam. I'm lucky in that my exam is a take home exam which I have two weeks to complete (now one week). However, this allows me to procrastinate, which is something I am skilled at. I also have a great thing to be distracted by: planning my parent's trip in November.

As usual, I offered my parents numerous options for what we could do when they were here. We suggested a cruise, or an Ireland/Scotland loop, or another loop through Germany. As usual, I also suggested my parents do some research to decide what they want to see/do. I was slightly surprised when they decided they wanted to see more of Germany. Not that there is anything wrong with this, I guess I was just surprised by it. I had thought the suggestion of the Guinness factory and a scotch tour would have swayed my dad in another direction, but I guess not.

The last time my parents were here, we did a loop through Germany which did many highlights, but was focused more on Bavaria. I thought this time we would look more towards northern Germany and Berlin. Josh and I went to Berlin once, and have said many times we need/want to go back. Based on that idea I started searching.

My parents arrive the day before Thanksgiving. Originally I was thinking we would have Thanksgiving at our house, and then taking off the next morning for our adventure. However, I found a killer hotel deal, but to have enough time in Berlin and still get the great price, we'd have to check-in on Thanksgiving. Everyone was okay with that idea, so I booked the hotel. But I felt like I needed to find something special to do for dinner to honor Thanksgiving. I wasn't sure if we should try to do a dinner show (I didn't realize Berlin had a LOT of dinner shows) or find a really nice restaurant. What I settled on was reservations at the Berlin TV Tower. At the top of the TV Tower there is a restaurant which offers 360 degree rotating views of Berlin. This reminds me of the Space Needle. Although it is kind of touristy, I think it will be fun. The pictures I have seen online are beautiful, and I think it will be a memorable Thanksgiving Dinner.

For our first full day in Berlin, I booked a walking tour. Although Josh and I tried to cram a bunch of things into the last trip we took to Berlin, I think this tour will help us all get an understanding of the layout of Berlin as well as information and history. I've left our Saturday open with no set plans. Berlin has 30+ Christmas markets, most of which will be open by the time we arrive. I'm sure we will have no problems finding things to fill our time. Sunday I have booked a tour for the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I'm excited for this tour, and I believe having a tour guide will help provide more information.

On Monday we will check out of our hotel and move on. I'm not 100% sure where we will go just yet. I'm thinking the next stop will be Dresden - this is something that has been on my list. I have heard it is beautiful, and I hear the Christmas Markets and Christmas decorations are amazing

From there, I am not sure where we will go. This is the time where my parents have to voice their opinions on what they want. I've thrown out the option of going to Poland to go shopping for Polish Pottery (something I could see my mom enjoying).

Or, we are in closer proximity to go to Prague. Or... there are more stops in Germany we could explore. It all kind of depends on what I can find for hotel deals and what my parents decide they want to do/see. But I think it's shaping up to be a pretty good Thanksgiving holiday.

Massive Update

So many things to recap in one post. Part is from me being gone, part is that I have been lazy recently. I went home to the states to see family, be a part of my best friend's wedding, and then had one day at home to do laundry and re-coop before I left to travel with my office to Sweden.

Going home was wonderful. I haven't been home to Montana in the summer time since I moved. I also haven't had a chance to do any Montana summer activities since 2010 as when I left it hadn't gotten nice weather-wise and I hadn't had time. It was amazing to have a chance to go swimming in the lake and go boating. The first weekend I was in town I spent up at my parents house. We went out on the lake and the weather was absolutely perfect. We also went for one night to see a play at one of my favorite summer theaters. It was a great start to my trip home.

The rest of the week I spent in Missoula spending time with my brother and niece and helping with wedding things as needed. In all honesty, there wasn't anything to be done. Instead I go to do fun wedding things like manicure/pedicures and a bachlorette party. Tough stuff, ha ha, but a lot of fun. The wedding itself went off without a hitch (or, I think it did, but maybe I need to ask the bride about that...). I thought the wedding was beautiful, the reception was a ton of fun, and I had a chance to spend time with a lot of friends I haven't seen in years. I'm so glad I had a chance to go home and be there for this.

As I said, I got home and had a day and a half to do laundry and attempt to get ready for my next trip. The owner of the office (also my boss) is originally from Sweden, so as a "thank-you" he took the office to Stockholm for Labor Day weekend. Some of the people I work with have been to Stockholm before, but this was a first time for me. As another first for me, I didn't do any research whatsoever for this trip. I didn't look up a single thing about Stockholm. I was going into the trip completely blind and just figured I'd be along for the ride for whatever anyone wanted to do. It was an amazing trip - full of things I normally don't do. My boss was a wonderful tour guide. He took us for lunch one day to an open fish market as well as taking us to see the changing of the guard. One afternoon he also took us for a private boat ride out to an island to do some shopping. Stockholm is absolutely beautiful - the whole time I was there I was thinking I couldn't wait to come back with Josh. Now, what was different for me on this trip (aside from being unprepared) was I spent a lot of time clothes shopping (not actually buying anything, but going along with other girls who wanted to shop) and we went out clubbing. I don't know if I have ever been out "clubbing" as there weren't much for clubs in Spokane or Misosula... and I wasn't really sure what to expect. However. Going out clubbing turned out to be a ton of fun. On two different nights we got dressed up (something I don't do often) and went out dancing.

Another huge difference with this trip was I really didn't see/do anything historical. Normally I research things, and I know exactly what there is to see. Josh and I usually try to cram in as much a possible in a trip. I did get a chance to see some of Old Town, we saw the changing of the guard, and a friend and I went to see the Vasa Museum (more on those in a second). But that was it. Part of me felt like I had kind of missed out or wasted time by not seeing things, but I suppose that's what happens when you are traveling with a group of people. It is more motivation to have a chance to go back.

Back to the changing of the guard. My boss explained this happens every Saturday. The military band marches and plays while parading through the main street up to the palace. We followed along with the band to the palace and then watching the ceremonial changing of the guard. I don't have any pictures of this as it started to pour down rain - to the point where everything: my shoes, jacket, jeans - were completely soaked. That part was a touch miserable. Later that same day a friend and I went to the Vasa Museum, which could have been one of my favorite parts of my trip. The Vasa was a Swedish war ship which was too top heavy, and on the maiden voyage it sank. The Vasa remained on the bottom of the sea for 300 years before it was raised up in the 1960s. It is amazing, yet eerie to see.

Since my whirl-wind ended, I've been trying to catch up on house work, laundry, and prepping for a comprehensive exam I have to take as a final step in school. Those things have made my time and desire to blog a bit low. But, I'm hoping to have more fun things to report as I prep for our Greek cruise and for my parents' trip in November.