Our last trip to Venice before we move

This weekend, we had thought about going to Florence, but decided we had too much to do this weekend before we left for our cruise, so we took a day trip to Venice instead.  It was great weather, we got really lucky because it has been raining pretty much everyday (standard European fall/winter weather).  Since we've been there so often, we didn't have anything that we had to see, so we had a nice time just wandering around.  We ended up meandering our way to Saint Mark's Square and the Arsenal.  As we started our trip back, we stopped in a glass shop and bought some fancy water and wine glasses to go with our china.  Our table will fit eight people, but we decided to buy 12 of each since it will probably be fairly hard to replace them as a couple break here and there.  It was a little strange walking in the city that we have spent so much time in but will probably not go back to for many years.

 

To her reward...

This was a bad weekend for the Nickel family.  Katie Friedman gave birth to Quinn, the Friedman's second boy, on Friday night.  Shortly afterward, Katie began to have complications from the birth.  She was taken into the OR, but the complications were too severe and she passed away.  Obviously her passing stunned everyone, including the doctors, as you do not anticipate things like this happening in the 21st century.  Her legacy will live on in her husband; Jon, and her two sons; Clark, and Quinn, as well as virtually everyone who had the good fortune to know her.  She was the life of almost every Nickel party and will be sorely missed.  Please keep the Friedman's in your prayers.

Oktoberfest

Last weekend, we spent a quick weekend in Munich, at the traditional Oktoberfest!  We had a great time hanging out with old friends and quickly making some new ones.  We got up early on Saturday morning for a chance to rush the doors at 9am.

Unfortunately, we weren't there quite early enough and didn't get our own table, but friends took care of us.  We waited around and visited for three hours, until a parade came by and the keg was tapped at noon!  "O'zapft is!" ("It's tapped!" in the Bavarian language).

 The hard-working waiters and waitresses spent the next couple of hours carrying up to ten liter steins of beer to thirsty revelers.

The guys at our table drank their fair share!

We ate roasted chicken, delicious sauerkraut and huge riesnbrezn (big pretzel).

 

 

Afterwards, we strolled the fairgrounds and snacked on a weiner and corn on the cob, a Nutella crepe and ice cream.

We met lots of neat people and were very sad to leave our last Oktoberfest, at least for the foreseeable future.  Prost!

 

 

Eze & Monaco pictures

The Chateau de la Chevre d'Or in Eze

 Tyler's yummy café au lait

 

 Cars in the hotel's parking lot--two Rolls', something black and a Ferrari

 

 Monaco's marina

 

Monte Carlo Casino

 

 Maserati parked outside the casino

 

 The view from the Grand Corniche (high road along the sea) as we left

 

Côte d'Azur

The Côte d'Azur, often known in English as the French Riviera, is the Mediterranean coastline of the south eastern corner of France, extending from Menton near the Italian border in the east to either Hyères or Cassis in the west. (wikipedia)

We visited the French Riviera on September 4-7, American Labor Day weekend.  We arrived in Nice on Saturday morning and spent the day wandering the downtown, following Rick Steves' walking tour and checking out the cool rocky beaches. 

 

  

 

We arrived to a recommended restaurant around 7:15pm and were told we'd have to wait until 7:30pm to order--the staff was still eating their dinner!  The food was completely worth the wait, Tyler had veal escalope and Laura ate a salad with chèvre toasts and proscuitto.  YUM!  On the way out, the waiter insisted that we keep the pen.  We figured it had the name of the restaurant on it and we'd keep it as a souvenir.  Upon closer inspection, nope, just a regular BIC! 

Sunday, we explored the town of Villefranche-sur-Mer (where we stayed).  Along the bay, we saw hundreds of tiny jellyfish!  We overheard someone saying that the day before, the beach had been closed because there were so many jellyfish.  Fortunately, we just got a good view and walked on. 

That afternoon, we hiked Cap Ferrat and gawked at the crazy huge yachts bobbing along in the bay.  Many people just dropped anchor (and the women, their tops!) and floated for the day.  One family even took their dog into the water with them! 

After a sweaty hike, we swam at the Plage de Passable. 

 

  

 

Then, we spent the evening enjoying the view and eating at a delicious restaurant.  Tyler had chicken-duck-chicken-duck-chicken slices and I had three different kinds of fish.  SO fresh!

Monday, we got up early, or so we vacationers thought, and got in the car.  We drove to Eze-le-village, a hilltop town that Tyler's parent actually visited when they spent a few weeks in France in 1978.  It was really cool to see the uber-expensive hotel where they stayed (courtesy of Nana & Granddad), the cars in the parking lot there and have a café where they might have sat.  Then, onto Monaco and the yachts of the country with the highest per capita income in the world.  Wow!  The casino looked more like a combination between a really ritzy country club and a palace.  There was a 10€ cover charge, to keep the riff-raff out, but we played the (no-cover charge) slots and won 1.80€ on a 5€ bet!  That's over a 30% gain!  We know when to hold them and when to fold them, so we took our money and ran.  We saw cars there that I've only read about and the swarms of other tourists made it feel somewhat like a circus. 

Fo' rizzle...

This is IT. I'm making a commitment to myself and you, our family and friends, that I will make our blog cool. You may now notice that it has a pretty background--but not too "pretty," for Tyler's sake--and that I'm actually posting. I might not be quite as crazy about posting as my friend Laura Smith (love ya!) but hopefully y'all will get a taste of what's up with us.

We have some exciting things coming up in the near future: We're going to be traveling a TON in the next few months, including a cruise in November, and we're moving in December--Tyler to Korea, Laura to Nebraska! Leaving Italy will be extremely difficult as we've made some fabulous friends here, but we're ready to live in America. Tyler has to wait a little while longer for that, but eventually he will join me in the land of Open 24 Hours.

Stay tuned for pictures from the Cote d'Azur last weekend.  Here's a preview...

Ciao for now!

The Tyler and Laura Annual Easter Letter

Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. They lived a fairy tale life and knew it. They pinched each other quite frequently to make sure it was real, sometimes causing physical harm. But, it was all in the name of making sure the fairy tale was real. In one year, they saw over thirty different cities in Europe, traveling to their hearts’ delight. They had a joyous time and lived happily ever after. The end. (cue music)

Seriously, folks, this is ridiculous. We completely recognize that we’re so blessed to be living the life we do. Tyler flies the greatest jet for the greatest Air Force in the world and Laura gets to live in the country she’s always dreamed about. And, it all happened because she decided to take an Italian course in college. I better start doing things like that more often. This last year has FLOWN by (get it?) and we’re so thankful that we’re here to enjoy the ride. Let me tell you a little bit about it…

It all started last January when we took a long weekend trip to Lake Bled, Slovenia. You might be thinking, “Where?” and that’s how we felt before we moved to this part of the world. Who knew that the entire area is a winter wonderland? It didn’t get any warmer than 35F, but we had warm coats and our love to keep us warm (insert your own gagging noise here). We strolled around the lake and went rowing out to an island in the lake during the day, and swam in the hotel pool complex (yeah, it was crazy—two waterfalls, a waterslide, and a fountain! All inside!) in the evenings. Delightful. The next weekend, we joined some friends for a ski trip at St. Anton am Arlberg, in Austria. There, I taught Tyler how to ski and he’s now almost as fast as I am! He’s a quick learner. And I’m a good teacher. We spent our après ski time at the Krazy Kanguruh and Tyler split his pants by trying to sled on a piece of broken bench. Triple Nickel Fighter Squadron standard. February brought a work trip for Tyler to Zaragoza, Spain, so I joined him for a weekend. We realized too late that it probably wasn’t the best idea for us to head off on our own, not knowing Spanish and all. I ate a lunch of turkey stuffing (we had no idea what we were ordering so we just pointed at a random thing on the menu) and we’re pretty sure the waiter was laughing at us the ENTIRE time, but we managed. He was gone for three weeks and I visited for three days. Not such a bad ratio.

At the very beginning of March, Steve & Judy graced us with their presence for almost two weeks. We visited all of the Bavarian castles of their youth. Linderhoff, Neuschwanstein, Weis Church, Oberammergau (home to a centuries-old woodworking tradition), Herrenchiemsee and our King Ludwig tour was complete. We attracted about two feet of snow during our vacation, but that just meant we threw lots of snowballs! They arrived home safely and the next weekend, I participated in my first musicale theater experience. We performed “The Baker’s Wife,” a show about…a baker and his wife and I actually had a small speaking role as “Hortense,” the wife of the town butcher. Funny, right, Jenny? My dutiful husband came to three of the six shows. He even brought me flowers on the last day! (repeat gagging noise here)

Jan & Rob visited for much of April, just over two weeks. We toured most of Europe, including but not limited to Austria, Germany and Italy. Mom wanted Rob to see as much as possible but it was maybe a little too much “tush time” with all of that driving. The highlight was spending a long weekend in Tuscany with Jon and Johanne and their wine snob friends. We spent more on wine that weekend than we did on our lodging (which was expensive)! Now, that’s a weekend in Tuscany! I specifically requested to spend my birthday in Salzburg at our favorite beer hall and ate the most delicious Bavarian meal of bratwurst, sauerkraut and a pretzel. Doesn’t get much better than that! As always, a too-short trip.

Cameron & Annie arrived in May and we had a blast spending as little money as possible, all while seeing Slovenia, Croatia and our favorite Italian beach. Tyler took them to Venice and they explored the glass-making factories on Murano. It’s strange that we’re grown-ups now and vacation together as couples instead of as siblings. (deep sigh) While they were here, I accepted a job at our base golf course, having found out about the position while taking lessons with my friend Elaine. I worked there for about a month and played NO golf, when I got promoted to working as the office manager at Outdoor Recreation. I’ve done office jobs before and this one felt no different. The nice part about this job is that the manager was incredibly flexible with vacation time, so Tyler and I took full advantage of that.

We spent the 4^th of July week in Lincoln, with Nicholas & Ameera, celebrating their wedding. We’re up for most excuses to go home and blow stuff up and no better excuse than a sibling’s wedding. Tyler headed straight back to Italy and work, but I spent some time visiting my grandparents in Minnesota, friend Sarah in Indiana and Andy in Pennsylvania. To top it all off, I tried to take a free military flight home and ended up spending an extra week with Andy and Jim & Sue and family…a perfect price to pay.

In August, we spent an incredible week in Norway, topped off by kayaking a FJORD! We saw Oslo, Bergen and the Sognefjord, where we hiked, biked and kayaked until we were red in the face. We loved it so much that we’ve already decided to spend our 10^th anniversary there, kayaking the ENTIRE (180 miles) Sognefjord! We’ll camp and kayak and swim and eat salmon we catch out of the fjord. All of that water made me realize why Norwegians settled in our area of Minnesota—I’m a water baby by heritage! I just can’t wait to see the fjords again…fjord, it’s even a fun word to say!

In September, we went to Salzburg with some friends for Labor Day. Our friends have a baby who was nine months old at the time. Three days was the longest amount of time Tyler had ever spent with someone younger than Cameron. Needless to say, he was glad to get home! We also went to Oktoberfest in Munich for three days of beer, huge pretzels and girls in dirndls. This made up for Labor Day weekend, in Tyler’s book. To complement our weekend of binging on Bavarian delicacies in Germany, we participated in a 50 kilometer bicycle ride around our local area with about five thousand of our closest friends. Afterwards, the organizing committee served us a lovely lunch of pasta and wine. The wine immediately made me forget my sore rear end!

For Thanksgiving, we went to Sicily and almost drowned in the crazy flooding there. The water was so high that we were literally worried about getting washed off the road while we were driving our rental SmartCar. Traffic stopped because a car got stuck in the mud ahead of us and it wasn’t supposed to be a dirt road, it was a fairly major highway. We narrowly escaped with our lives, got off scot-free with the damage we caused to the rental car driving through said mud, and have a fun story (and crazy pictures) to tell as a result!

Right after Thanksgiving, I decided I’d had enough of this job business and resigned. I did an orientation with the Red Cross and am now an official volunteer. We’ll see where that takes me… Also, I participated in my second play, as Belle in “The Beauty and the Beast.” The resulting notoriety amongst the local five-year-olds has been a little strange! But I love it. The weekend before we went home for Christmas, we decided that we had not traveled enough, so went skiing for the day, spent the night in Austria, and then spent the next night in Venice before going to the airport. The flights home were fine, except we got stuck in Chicago and as a result it took us over 60 hours of traveling to get home (it should only take about 24). After all that, we finally made it home for Christmas, which is pretty good considering that we are five of five for Christmases at home while being in the Air Force, for which we are very thankful.

We hope this Easter letter finds you in a festive mood. We meant to send this a couple of months ago, but it got lost on the computer. (Read: I forgot about it.) Take care of yourselves for us and we hope to see you all soon!

Love,

Tyler & Laura

P.S. We’ll probably be moving from Italy in the wintertime, so plan your trips to take advantage of our hospitality SOON!

Ooooh, boy!

This is our very first blog and we just joined facebook, too. It's been a big week! Yup, that's about all. I'm not so good with the "sharing every single thought that just jumps into my head," so I'll have to get back to this. Hi Mom! Time for bed, so g'night!