So its Winter

and its been snowing in Düsseldorf, Germany... actually over all in Germany.

Lucky for me, I get a White Christmas...hahaha all you Californians :)

Here's a view from our balcony, excuse my Camera...my iPhone isn't as baller as my Canon:

Remember our Balcony Garden in the Summer?

Naturally we got a christmas tree, and decorated it of course:

And made cute decorations to go with our tree...

Then it snowed again, and it was a MUST to play in the snow...

And we make this...

We had a snow ball fight and threw snow balls at him...

and her...

and I got to frolic in the snow with this dude...

winter is sooooo schöööööön, schnee auch!

Orange Oktober

I don't know if you've heard...but its Torture Baseball folks

The American Ways of Love

"Who is Nykki?"

Behind the Scenes: Saturday Mornings in the Altstadt

Like most 'Behind the Scenes' specials, viewers get an 'all access: 24/7' look at the real life of......(fill in the blank).

Today I woke up to blue skies with a crisp fresh air. Naturally, the California girl that I am, I thought "Christmas." Unfortunately Californians don't really know what fall or autumn is, which is so sad because Deutschland has the prettiest fall season. This beautiful fall day inspired me to share a 'behind the scenes look' of our Saturday morning for all of our Cali friends.

The Altstadt is filled with young "inspiring" street artists. Unlike the New York Subways, where you actually have to audition to play, many talented (and sometimes not so talented) build up their little stage and play for the amusement and money of others.

This young man, was playing and raising money to support his passion of playing the Harp. The picture does not show justice of how well he played, but we was appreciated by all of the 5, 10 and even 20 Euro bills people gladly left him.

The beautiful fall day...

First Stop: Wochemarkt

The Carlsplatz Markt is a farmers market that is open 6 days a week, year round. Not to mentin, they have the best food.

Here's one of the many fruit/veggie stands...

The Carlsplatz Markt has their own Thanksgiving...not as a holiday or tradition as in America...and a month too early, but I'm excited to see what kind of food they are going to have

The best stand for cold cuts, we had to get a number and wait until we were called on just to order! Anyone look familiar in the picture?

Check out the variety...(my camera wasn't big enough to capture the entire selection)

What's a German Markt with out sweets?

...and flowers? Sorry all my Cali friends, but you are getting ripped off buying flowers, not only are they WAY cheaper...but you have such a variety!

Mr. Schier's Fruit and Vegetable stand, one of our favorite Obst und Gemuse stands. Mr. Schier's used to be a regular at Le Pain.

and in case you need some stuff for the shower or bathroom...

Next Stop: Hinkel Backeri for some brötchen

Believe it or not, at the end of the day the entire bread is sold and the bakery is empty!

and again...the sweets and "kuchen"

Naturally we picked up Starbucks, because I am of course still American

Then we feasted....

Let me tell you it was LECKER!

E-Blogger

Call me old school or even clueless, but today I learned something phenomenally cool. Did you know that you can send photos per email to Blogger??? Yeah I guess I may be a little behind all of these cool technically easy, user friendly tools, but no one told me about this rad feature. I hated waiting for ever to load up photos and then having to format the blog, blah blah blah, and now its literally at the tip of my finger tips. Lucky for you all, you may be getting more blogs!

I picked out some favs from the photo album, maybe I should start using my phone camera a little more...

Deutschland Game vs. England (4-0 shut-out, duh)

Did I mention I had some visitors at the end of June? Jenna and Amy came to town, unfortunately I don't have any other photos from this epic trip, my bad Strapp. Fail

Some Jetskiers making me jealous...

They are a cool pair, and amaze all of the tourist by staying still for hours on end until a little kid convinces his mommy to give him money to put in a jar, to only see that they bend down and the hip to motion "Thanks." I admit, I stood and watched for at least 15 min. (even though I see them every weekend).

Ovechkin was in the house and so were we! Got to see the Ovi, the Great 8 after the Stanley Cup (thanks for losing Caps)

Now if I could only master this Retweet thing on Twitter I think I would be a social media master....

Green Thumbs Up!

So Matthias and I come from a family of very experienced and successful gardeners and we thought to try our luck and test if we were luckily enough to have inherited a 'green' thumb.

We started off with the basics: Tomatoes (both cherry and the normal big ones), peppers, and cucumbers. Here they are when we first got them...

Tomatoes:

Peppers and Cucumbers:



We also got some herbs: rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano and mint.
Here's the 'garden'...


We gave a little water, sun and of course love and slowly they began to grow...







So far we have harvested 4 cucumbers and many, many leaves of potential peppers and tomatoes. Here are 2 of 'em...don't mind me in this pic...I'm pretty sure I just rolled out of bed and decided I wanted to eat some cucumbers...




Currently the mixture of too much rain, water or sun they are looking a little weak and yellow...hopefully we can save them...otherwise we are not so green handy as we thought!

Vaca to Andalucia, Spain

Matthias and I spent a relaxing 9 days in the south of Spain in the region of Andalucaia. We wined and dined at a Marriott Resort/time share in between Marbella and Estepona and lived like ballers. With our lovely friends and family rate of 55€/night (what a steal!) we walked around like we paid 200€/night like everyone else at the resort. The 9 days flew by fast but we were still able to get a lot in and still be able to do nothing! Luckily we brought our new Canon 450D with us to capture our adventure through out Spain!

The red 'X' is where we stayed

The Marriott Resort

...from our room

...from the beach

Built some sand castles

Drank (many) Sangrias and listened to music while basting in the sun at the pool

Went hiking and found a tipi

Stood on top of the world

I was reintroduced to my friend, the beach

Ate the BEST steaks and fish at this restaurant ( I swear we did not go there 2 nights in a row...)

Went to see a bull fight

Went to Morocco

Rode a Dromedary (one humped camel)

and of course got a good 3 or 4 'sun' days and now I don't feel like I match the color of our pale walls!

I do have to admit, I could get used to these 28 days of paid vaca in Germany...our next vacation will be in Sept. when Matthias and I join my Asian fam on a trip to China. That being said, I don't know the next time we will be visiting the U.S. So here is everyone's invitation to Düsseldorf!

Not only are 4 leaf clover's green....

but so is the German Polizei.

Not only is March 17th the day that Christian Muehlenberg (matthias's dad) was born, but also a commonly known holiday as "st. patrick's day." We were in Krefeld at the Muehlenberg's house celebrating and I went back to Duesseldorf with Katie (Flo's girlfriend) to pick up Matthias after work. The entire way to Duesseldorf (about 20 min) I was telling Katie how driving here is way more relaxed since there are no speed limits on the Autobahn and how I never see the Polizei pulling people over. About 10 min later, I notice a Polizei car behind me following me and didn't think much of it...then all of a sudden I see the red "Polizei, STOP" sign flashing. Naturally, my palms start sweating and I franticly ask Katie what I'm supposed to do, (even in the U.S I've never been pulled over). I pull over to the side and Katie instructs me not to speak German, I figured too, its always better to play the "dumb American." I hand her my driver's license and she asks if I've been drinking, I say "No" and she asks if she can give me an Breathalyzer test. I agreed, then attempted to do the Breathalyzer, and it took me two time to get it right (gotta play up to my dumb american role) and successfully passed. She handed all of my stuff and told me to have a nice night.

Germans have an absolute zero tolerance policy for alcohol and driving. Legally you are only allowed to have one beer and are still O.K to drive. Anything after there you are pretty much screwed! They don't need a reason to pull you over, and are allowed to give you a Breathalyzer and a pee test at any time with out any reason. It was very nervr-recking but now I can say I survived the German Polizei!

About Marriott...

So as you know, or may not know, I applied for a job through the Marriott website here in Duesseldorf. It was really all a coincidence, I was sitting on the couch one night while Erik and Matthias were playing playstation and we checking out job opportunities. I happened to find a front desk position at a Courtyard Marriott in the area. It was about 3am and I just decided to apply, just to "see" what would happen. In the past when I've applied online for a job at a hotel it normally takes at least a couple of months. Surprisingly, the next day I got an email inviting me for an interview. The next week, I interviewed (alles auf Deutsch) and had a really good feeling about the interview and job....they wrote me an email about a week later and said they were reconstructing and didn't have room for me but would like to keep my application on file for the future. Thinking that was just an easy way to let me down, I didn't think too much about it and continued waking up every morning and heading to Le Pain.

Then out of nowhere, I recieved another email inviting me back for yet another interview for a new event department position. I interviewed, again and the next day I was offered the job!!

I was hired as the in-house event coordinator and will the "go-to" person for when we have in events. I will be working directly with another girl and its just the 2 of us that make up the event department.

I quit the restaurant today, a little sad, but how could I pass up this opportunity? My last day is on Monday. Matthias also quit because he needs to write his bachelor thesis and will leave at the end of April. It was a great experience and I was able to vastly improve my German skills. It was fun while it lasted, but Mr. Marriott has called my name...