Kiran!

We received a visit from the lovely KIRAN!!! Yay! I urge you all to come and do the same. I love visits. Our couch is lonely without a warm body to keep it company, and we are comepletely overrun with sausages, too, and in need of help eating them... (I'm sure we can even scrounge up some ghee to fry them in for those who so desire.)


Kiran enjoying two major pleasures of our German existence: The bratwurst sausage with mustard and The Paulaner weissbier... ah, good times.

We visited the Koelner Dom, which is the massivist most kick ass cathedral ever. (It's in Cologne, which is 40mins from Duesseldorf). You really can't do it justice with a camera - it's just too tall.

These two dudes were hanging out in the doorway...

...checking out this chick.

My best meal to date in all of Germany was in Cologne at the Haxenhaus Am Rheingarten. It's an inn/pub/restaurant that's been around for a few hundred years. Damn good lamb knuckles, schnitzel and sausage!

More on our Hungary exploits to come soon...! :)

Liam's Baptism

In August we went on a Deutsche Bahn adventure (ie: train fiasco!! don't be needlessly fooled by the stereotype that Germans are efficient and orderly! I have evidence to prove otherwise...).

Our mission was to make it to the little town of Weidingen, near Bitburg, to attend Liam's baptism. Thanks to luck, dogged persistence and Claudia, the gracious mother of the baptee himself, we made it just in the nick of time. It was a wonderful day watching the ceremony, then meeting Claudia's family, getting a tour of the town and area and drinking white wine in the sun and gorging on cake.

This is little Liam!

Here he is with mom, Claudia, and dad, Mark. Claudia and Tone are friends from UBC. She still works there, but came over for a visit to Germany to do the baptism up in proper style with the full fam-damily.

This is the church the baptism was held in. It's a pilgrimage site (can't remember why), so is much bigger and more colourful than you would expect for the size of the town (about 200). Claudia's family's house was right across the street, so we just walked back over for the reception afterwards.

This is Johann, a friend of the family. He was totally adorable in his little lederhosen.

Claudia with the Tonemeiser.

Belgium

Here're a few shots of our visit to Belgium in August...

Tony, Alice and Giuseppe in Dinant, Belgium.

Dinant is on the Meuse River (also known as the Maas, as in Maastricht). Impressive church and cliff fortress.

Kayaking on the Lesse River... more castles on cliffs!

Me frolicking beside the river. I think this field is where the knights must have had jousting competitions...

Al and G-sep!