La Chocolate

During our brief visit with Roman in Koln(Cologne) this weekend, we stopped by the Chocolate museum....because we all like chocolate. They had a full production line going on in there. Very interesting. This machine spins the hollow mold chocolates.


Mom and Eli-enjoying a choco-moment.

The fam in front of the chocolate fountain. Signs of sugar poisoning are starting to show in Eliot.

Choconarcosis has set in.

Detox sucks.

Olympic Training

One can never start too early.

Playland Photos
In addition to many nice ammenities, our hotel in Austria (The Hagleitner) has a great play area for Eliot.







All done.... Now comes the bestest part of the hotel. After we put him down for the night, we have this cool pager/mobile phone thingy that only rings if there is noise in Eliot's room. Yep, we get to enjoy our nice dinner(and drinks) while Eli sleeps the night away. Very nice!

Ice Age

Today, we rode up nearly to the top of the Kitzsteinhorn glacier (3203m) taking up 2 big gondolas. Andy was brave enough to go snowboarding (this is day #3 for us snowboarding beginners) -- pretty brave considering we were above the treeline and it was difficult to tell where the beginner trails ended and where the edge of the cliff and XTREME snowboarding began! He made it back in one piece though, so Eliot and I were happy about that.
Eliot says: "Are we going all the way UP there??? Are you sure this is safe???"

Andy and Eliot at 2452 meters. The air is thin up here. Feeling woozy, better get back down.

"Wow"

Alpine Sledding





Yeah, Eli loved it.

Paparazzi

While traveling through Munich on our way to Austria, Eliot was mobbed by a group of Paparazzi (about 8 young Asian women). At least 1,000,000 photos were taken in the span of about 15 minutes. Dad enjoyed the eye candy, and was appreciative of his son's "babe magnet" skills.

Miscellaneous Xmas pictures
I know that we have been terrible at posting over the holidays. Please accept my sincere apologies. (and these photos)


Scott in his new hummingbird earings. You should see how they catch the light in the morning.


Sharing a banana.


Babcia and Eliot at Christmas dinner

Bruges, Belgium

Eliot, patiently waiting in line to go down his first ice slide. He is oblivious to the fact that he is in an igloo.

Wet diapers are not allowed.

New Year's in Berlin

The height of the trip for Eliot was definitely the Berlin aquarium. We had a hard time getting him out.

Eliot and Michael - Out for a spin in his new wheels.

much too cool to use 2 hands.

But...my mother does wear combat boots.

Weinachsmarkt

Sorry for the long delay in posting, but Eliot decided to get sick, and Andy decided to make him feel better by getting sick as well! Everyone is feeling better, but now we're in the mad dash for Christmas, and preparing also for all of our visitors. This, however, did not stop us from enjoying some time at a Weinachsmarkt (Christmas market) in Otterberg this past weekend - a small town just 15 min away, that has a lot of historical old buildings including a church from the 16th century. Eliot liked the horses best (there was a horse and carraige ride for the kids), I liked the brats, and Andy liked the gluwine best (spiced yummy hot wine that is served everywhere during this season!)
We went with our neighbors who have a little boy, Michael, just a few months older than Eliot. He has taught Eliot a lot of things, most recently how to say "mine". I can see this is going to be a fun game in the future with Kaya -- he already drives that poor dog crazy!
They were nice enough to take a picture of the 3 of us... with Andy as the photo guru, we don't often get pictures together so this was a treat.

Thorpe or Ray Charles, you decide.

Who said potty training couldn't be fun for the whole family?

Do I even need to comment on Kaya's contribution?

Shadows

OK, the picture is a bit blurry, but I think you can all see the problem here. Eliot has recently discovered his shadow, and he is not at all a fan of this creature that follows him wherever he goes. This is a photo that captures him frozen, for fear of the shadow getting closer. Like a sheet of toilet paper stuck to your shoe, he just couldn't shake that shadow. Never fear, mom was there to save the day!

Meet our sheep

From our 3rd floor bedroom

So the story goes like this.....Once upon a time, our landlord (Peter) says to our neighbors, "By the way, you have to mow the grass in the back" Keeping in mind that it's like 5 acres of tall grass back there, they say, "I don't think so. Why don't you hire someone and I'll give you some money". We'll next thing you know these alleged sheep show up, 5 of them in our backyard. Our neighbor, Ed, looks at them, observes the prominate horns, and tells Peter that he bought goats not sheep. After some debate and consulatation of Mr. Google, we think that they may actually be some exotic form of sheep. Confirmation would be appreciated. I'll try and get some better close ups in the near future.

Salt, Salt, and more Salt

On Saturday, we took a day trip to the famous Salt Mines of Krakow. Once again Eliot's behavior was pristine. We are extremely appreciative of his tolerance of our travels at this age. Here are a couple of photos from the trip. This is an active salt mine with a ton of salt sculptures that have been carved by the miners over the last 500 or so years. It was 850 steps down, but we got to take an elevator up. Nice since we decided to take Eliot's stroller. Surprisingly, a wise decision.


Renee could probably translate, but I'm guessing it says "Salt Mine" or something
Walking the mines.


Top view of the main Cathedral in the salt mine. Yes, everthing you see is carved from salt including the chandeliers which are pure salt crystals also cut from the mine.



The Altar of the Cathedral


Eliot likes to push his stroller, even when it was folded up. Yes, the floors are made of salt.

Finally, we have the krasnoludki (gnomes). Some of the most famous salt carvings. Legend has it that the knomes, which are alive, can't move while being observed by humans. This is why they appear as statues.

Christmas in November!!!

Our x-mas present came early this year when Renee got a surprise call from the CDC today. Eliot got a permanent spot at the Landstuhl day-care facility. Woo hooo!!! Not only was our current rental slot (at the Sembach Airforce base) running out next week, but it was at a base that had us driving an extra 2 hours per day. We thought it could be up to a year before he got into Landstuhl, one of the most respected facilities in the area and conveniently located on the same base that Renee works at. It may not seem like a big deal, but this is huge. We're very excited.

Krakow

Wow. I did not know Poland could be so cool. I mean, I spent so much of my childhood trying to hide the fact that we were Polish (you know, all the Polish jokes, mom and dad spoke with a funny accent, it was uncool to be "different"). And of course, I eventually embraced the uniqueness of being first generation American, and began to appreciate being able to speak a second language fluently without having to struggle with learning verb congugation. But my visit here to Krakow transcends all of that. Krakow is just plain cool, amazing, awesome, you name it. It is unbelievably cosmopolitan and bohemian all at the same time. It has a vibe. It is "European" and shi-shi, without being full of itself. I am now embracing my heritage like never before (though apparently I've let my Polish get rusty enough that most Krakowians respond to me in English after I speak to them in Polish!)

The city is home to over 170,000 university students, and the cafe/restaurant/night life scene seem to reflect that... and actually, probably reflect more of the tourism industry which apparently is doubling year after year. It is truly amazing to walk into establishments that could be found in the heart of NYC or Chicago or any other major city. I guess that is capitalism and marketing at work - pretty powerful stuff, I tell you. I still remember visiting Poland in the second grade while it was still under communist rule -- everything was so gray, and the shelves in the stores were all empty as people waited in long lines with ration tickets. Much different today, though I wonder who is now paying the price (the street peddlers, homeless, those unable to take advantage of new times and economies, etc). What an interesting world we live in.

We are staying in a very neat apartment/room rental place just a few minutes walk outside of the city square. The couple that owns this is very nice, and they have been incredibly helpful. They are setting us up with a babysitter tomarrow night (one that watches their own son) so that Andy and I can have a night out on the town. We'll update you more on that later :)

In any case, enough of my babble... let me show you some pictures of this enchanted place.

Rynek Glowny (Main city square)

Palac Krolewski (Wawel Castle)

Needless to say, we've all fallen in love with this city.

Happy Thanksgiving

We don't really have any Thanksgiving dinner photos. But, we were definitely thinking about the plight of the pilgrams as we ate in a Georgian (Republic of...) restaurant while visiting downtown Krakow. It was very good and made us feel very adventurous. However, after seeing two more of them in other parts of the town, we are suspicious that it may be the Georgian equivalent of Chilis. Oh well. Now we know.

Renee will explain more about everything that we've seen later, but for now I'll just say that we've done a lot of walking and Eliot loves the pigeons and horses and dogs and cats and anything else that moves. Here are a couple of photos. Renee will post some more later.



Eli in the main courtyard of the Wawel castle overlooking Krakow.



Eli playing with the Pigeons in the town square.