a cold mom

so i guess the wet cold in germany was not so bad! minus 45 is a little rough. i planned on moving somewhere warmer after i graduated...not sure what happened! sloane was not impressed when i took her out on one the first really cold days. poor girl has no idea about the climate she lives in. heated seats and command start certainly make things easier though. the command start has failed me the past 3 mornings, but it works after my first outing.

i can't believe x-mas is a week away. so far the season has been a blur of gingerbread, icing, snow, friends and family. i have 60 x-mas cards to mail out, which i was looking forward to attaching my ms word/avery labels to, but due to technical difficulties, i will be writing out everyone's address by hand! computers blow sometimes. i typed out those addresses with one finger right after sloane was born. it took FOREVER. whatever.

my starbucks is wearing off and i am tired. those tallnonfatpeppermintmochas having been a lifesaver! how else could i survive on a few hours sleep a night? starbucks and make-up. no mac make-up anymore, the drugstore kind. but it does the job! my girfriend said i look great! that's awesome b/c i feel exhausted. i can see sloanes teeth, but they have a ways to go before they cut. i just hope my sleep sich changes soon. i remember sleeping 8 hours a night in the summer...sigh.

home sweet home

after a ten hour flight from munich and a two hour flight from toronto, julian, sloane and i arrived home. i was so excited the night before we left to finally come home. i do love travelling, but i miss all my friends and family after a week or so. we came home to minus 20 weather, and fresh snow! i don't know if you have to be from winnipeg to appreciate the weather, but it put a smile on my face when i got outside. germany and england were both around zero degrees and wet for the most part. i now understand wet cold. i was freezing over there. i never understood why people would always add "it's a dry cold" when talking about winnipeg winters, and now i do! being wet AND cold is awful! i should know this from taking my heat transfer course in university. wet cold is sort of like wind chill. it feels colder than it actually is. i definitely prefer the minus 20 temps in wpg to the wet cold in europe.

it feels great to be home. i missed cooking, doing laundry, tv in english, sloane's exersaucer, eating when i want, my phone, my computer, friends, family.....the list goes on. it is december, and christmas madness has begun! i will make my to do list today.

munich

still in munich. we leave tomorrow. my first day, s and i went for a walk through a huge park and did some looking around through the shops. munich is much newer than aachen. aachen dated back to the 7th century, where as munich has been completely reconstructed post WWII. munich is very easy to get around with the tram. yesterday j had the day off, so we wondered the streets....unfortunately in the rain. we ducked into a restaurant to dry off, and had some awesome vegetarian food. it was a nice switch from the sausage i've been eating EVERY day. today we are going to walk through the park and do some shopping.

gotta run though...paying by the minute, will upload pics when i get back to wpg.

munich

i made it to munich after a drive and a long train ride. we got in, very tired @ 8 pm last night. train ride was beautiful. i really need to figure out how to pack less!! going for a walk today while j is at work. i really wish i hadn't forgotten my lonely planet! gotta go, internet is over $1 per minute and i'm typing with one hand b/c s is on my lap.

shopping II

i was much more aggressive today on my shopping trip. i even ran over a few toes! the secret is if you don't acknowledge that it happened, it didn't happen. it totally worked. people step on you or whack you with their umbrella and carry on like nothing happened. now, i am doing the same. i need to be sure to go back to my more curtious ways when i get back home to the peg.

shopping and sausage in aachen

s

ummmm, can i have some bun with my sausaage?


aachen at night

aachen christmas market

it has been so hard to access a computer and download pics!! j couldn't get the internet access working in our room in germany, so i was trying to use the computer in the lobby, but between waiting to use it, german keyboards and a lost camera cord, it was difficult. oh yeah, and a baby on my lap! anyways, i'm in my room now, but i don't have long b/c i need to go shopping @ 10 to try beat the 1.2 million shoppers that come to aachen to do the same thing i'm trying to do.

we got to aachen, germany on sunday night. barely got the rental car loaded, then cruised down the autobahn to our hotel. hotel is really nice and modern, and in the middle of shopping paradise. we had an amazing dinner of delicious tenderloin steaks on sunday night with a couple winnipegers and a german that j is working with. monday was filled with shopping mayhem. i thought i would have the shops to myself on a monday afternoon, but i was very wrong! it was shoulder to shoulder everywhere! i now understand what my engineering girlfriend said after returning from germany...people just walk into you and don't even acknowledge you. i need to be more aggresive today! yesterday i was in a shop for 20 minutes, first i picked out my gingerbread, then someone cut in front of me in line, and picked up my gingerbread off the counter and bought it! i wanted to object, but all i can say in german is thank you. oh well.

i bought the biggest sausage on the smallest bun! i think the bun is only there to make it easy to carry aroud your sausage. it was delicious!! crispy skin and oh so juicy. then i saw a guy selling sausage off a stand he was wearing! he had a propane tank on his back and a grill hanging off his shoulders...too funny! i think i will buy sausage off him today.

i gotta go...10 am shops open.