Rolling on the Rhine

Monday, March 16, 2015

15 Countries

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page." - St. Augustine

We often think about other countries and cultures in a "us vs. them" mentality and traveling is probably the best way to experience other ways of life and realize that at the heart of it all, we really are all the same. Recently, our trip to Romania marked the fifteenth country that I have visited. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to have seen so much of the world, and I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at all of the amazing places I have been:

United States

Canada, 2007& 2011

Italy, 2008

Vatican City, 2008

Ireland, 2012

Guatemala, 2013

China (Hong Kong), 2013

Thailand, 2013

Germany, 2014

Luxembourg, 2014

United Kingdom, 2014

Belgium, 2014

France, 2014

Netherlands, 2014

Romania, 2015

Here's hoping for many more travels in the future!

Weekend in Transylvania

The week of Mardi Gras is traditionally one of the biggest holidays/celebrations in Cologne. Schools close, people take time off of work, and there are non-stop parties. Since my German classes were cancelled for a few days (and we weren’t quite sure we were up for so much celebration), we decided to take a long weekend trip to…ROMANIA! After doing some research on google.com/flights (a really cool site), we found round-trip tickets direct from Cologne to Cluj-Napoca, Romania for 20€ per person. Since that price was too good to pass up, we decided to go for it and visit someplace that was never even on our radar.

Cluj-Napoca is located in the Transylvania region of Romania and is the second largest city in the country, second to the capital, Bucharest. Romania is historically rich country and was conquered and ruled by the ancient Romans. Although Romania is surrounded by Slavic language countries, Romanian is a Romance language, related to Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (Wikipedia).

Even though we weren’t sure what to expect and we certainly don’t speak any Romanian, we were pleasantly surprised. The city center was made up of a mix of small shops, charming buildings, old churches and trendy restaurants. Of course some of the area outside of the center is more rural and the country as a whole is still developing. It was still a wonderful place, with friendly people, good food, and interesting sites.

A Downtown Hotel

Demmers Teehaus

Cluj-Napoca National Theatre

St. Michael's Church and Matthias Corvinus Statue

Commemorating the Founding by the Romans

Dormition of Theotokos Orthodox Cathedral

Talida Salt Mine

Romanian Countryside

Union Square

City Hall

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Adventures in the Arts

Kölner Philharmonie

A few weeks ago, we were sitting at home and Will started browsing through the upcoming concerts at the Kölner Philharmonie. As he was scrolling down, a familiar face popped up. Manfred Honeck, the conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, was going to be guest-conducting the WDR Orchestra in Cologne. Manfred is originally from Austria, so he is even a real-live, native German speaker! We booked our tickets immediately and the concert was great. It was also nice to see a familiar face!

Metropolis Cinema

I also recently discovered a movie theater that shows new, recently released US movies in English as well was movies from other countries. I went to see Selma last night (fantastic). It was shown in English with German subtitles, but I think most of the audience was German. There was, however, a group of American-sounding English speakers waiting in line to see Into the Woods. Maybe this is a good place to hang out to find other expats.

The Metropolis was also a great find because I had previously thought we would have to wait for new movies to be dubbed into German, possibly a year or longer, before we could see them. It was also only 5€, which seemed like a bargain compared to US ticket prices!

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Kölner Haie and FC Köln

Hello again, Friends. I know that it’s been a long time—I don’t know how this much time got away from me. I have been so busy preparing for the end of my German class (more on that later, I promise) as well as keeping up with our busy social calendar. The last time I posted, the weather was on the fritz, but has settled down into a pretty consistent routine of 35-40 degrees, drizzle, and grey skies. The amount of daylight has significantly increased and it’s now light until about 6pm. What a welcome change from a 3pm dusk…although I’m not quite sure I’m ready for the 11pm sunset in the summer.

Over the past couple weeks, we’ve been to two Cologne sporting events: a Kölner Haie hockey game and an FC Köln soccer game. What stood out the most at both of these events was the sheer enthusiasm of the crowd. Both games were regular season games and nearly sold out (18,000+ at the hockey game and 43,000+ at the soccer game). The energy felt like a Stanley Cup playoff game and the Super Bowl rolled into one. At both arenas, the section directly behind the nets are standing room only and reserved for fans who cheer/sing/dance the entire game. Before the game, the entire stadium sings the team’s anthem by heart.

Unfortunately, all of the team spirit didn’t help. The Haie lost to their rival, Düsseldorf and the soccer game ended in a 1-1 tie. It was still a great time, though!

Kölner Haie vs. Düsseldorf EG

"We breath Hockey since 1972."

FC Köln vs. Hannover

The entire FC Köln anthem can be heard here. The song is sung in the traditional Kölsch dialect, so I really have no idea what they're saying, but they have spirit!

Sunday, January 25, 2015

January Weather

The winters in Cologne are typically nothing compared to the snow-ridden, polar vortexed winters of Pittsburgh, so we have been fortunate in that regard. Instead of being snowy, the days are usually grey, rainy, and short, with only about 8ish hours of daylight and little real sunshine. However, since we've been back, things have been a bit unusual and we've been on a climatic roller coaster. The first weekend of January it was warm enough to go walking on the river trail and then yesterday it snowed for the first time! The days have also started getting noticeably longer and the sun is now setting around 4:30pm. I think that means there is light (literally) at the end of this tunnel!

First weekend of January

Second weekend of January

First snow during the third weekend of January

Christmas in Pittsburgh

Happy New Year, everyone! I know my Christmas post is long overdue, but we have been so busy for the past several weeks that I haven’t been able to get anything put together about our trip back to the US. Things are starting to slow down (before picking back up later), so I had some time to get all of my pictures organized and some updates written down.

I flew to Pittsburgh in the middle of December and then Will followed a couple days later. It was so nice to be back at home and see all of our friends and family…not to mention being able to speak English to everyone. :) We were extremely busy as we tried to make time to visit with everyone and do all of the things that we had missed. It was also a chance to gorge ourselves on all of the American foods that we have been missing. I think I went to Qdoba five times! We flew back to Germany on New Year’s Eve, taking off at midnight German-time and landing at midnight Pittsburgh-time. The flight attendants even passed out mini glasses of champagne to celebrate.

Since we’ve been back, we’ve been getting back in to our regular routine and getting re-settled back in. I have one more month of German (language) class and then I will take my official exam. After that, I’ll have one month of a German culture/history class to finish up my visa requirements. Then we’ll have a fairly constant stream of visitors through the middle of May to keep us busy!