Its all a lie!!

We need to come clean; Erin and I have not been traveling Europe for the last 6 months. We have actually been held up in Wimberly Texas. We truly wanted to get away from it all and experience something different so we googled "small town in texas" and found this lovely town called Wimberly Texas (http://www.visitwimberley.com/). We really did not want to tell you guys, because we admit that it does sound kind of odd so we invested in a bunch of back drops so that we could take pictures in front of them and claim to be at these amazing places all across Europe.

A good example is this back drop that we shot this weekend. It really looks like we are standing infront of the Acropolis, but in reality we just got back from a lovely picnic with our neighbors Ned and Elda. Ned runs the local gas station here in Wimberly and Elda is a retired school teacher that just loves to knit.

You may be wondering what we have been doing to pass our time while in Wimberly. Well I have been spending lots of time on the net researching these places so that I can write convincing trip reports (all this research has shown me that it would be really nice to be able to visit these places, but considering that the Dollar is getting killed by the Eruo it just does not seam prudent). I even wrote one for our imaginary Greece trip, and in the interest of not wasting my hard work I will still publish it.

Hello from SUNNY Greece; I pitched this trip to Erin on Christmas day after I found 2 round trip tickets to Greece for about 150 Euros. It was really easy to ask the question of "when are we ever going to get to Greece for around 150 bucks" it makes it easy to say "yes". We booked the tickets and a couple of weeks later we where staring at the clear blue Ageian sea. Not to brag but I have gotten pretty good at finding really good cheap places to stay. This room in Athens was a great example, it was blocks from the Acropolis, in a part of town that did not allow cars, and was 135 Euros for 3 nights. Its true that you could feel every spring in the bed, but hey we where blocks from the Acropolis.

So our goals for the trip where simple, we wanted sun, I wanted to climb, and see all the acient history that Athens had to offer. I would say that it was a success!

Friday:

Erin ducked out of school a little early and I got done being "Manney" (read the last blog post) and we are off to Athens.

Saturday:
Woke up and realized that the acropolis was literally in our back yard. Or first goal was to go get some sun by the sea. We took the a tram ride for about an hour threw the city and ended up at the Agean. Honestly the beach was dirty and had one to many fat men in Speedos, but and this is an important but, the Sun was warm. We sat there soaked up the sun and read our books.

Sunday:

I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do something adventurous in Europe and not end up in the hospital. It's for that reason that we spent most of the day sunday completely lost, riding wrong buss after wrong buss, in search of this climbing area on the outskirts of town. Now for those of you that have never been to Athens you should know that the city sprawls and I mean SPPPRRAAWWLLLSS. Its no wonder that it took us 5 hours of dusty buss riding to get to this crag. Erin said that she really enjoyed this part of traveling, and I can honestly say after 6 months of less then average adventure, that this was the first time I wanted to jump into my pick up truck and just drive to the crag instead of ride this bus all over Athens. Eventually around 1ish we made it, climbed a couple of routes, and headed home glad that we made the effort to try and find this place.

Monday:
Checked out a bunch of old stuff. I have read several rather large books lately on WW2/Germany history. I could even go as far to say that I have a fairly good working knowledge of the country I live in. Going to Greece taught me that I have so much more to learn about so many cultures out there. They where building impressive monuments to the gods 3,000 years before Hitler got out of Diapers. It definitely motivated me to learn more about Athenian history.

Well thats about all I have to report, go check out Athens if you can look past the smog, sprawl, and noise, it has something valuable to offer at every turn.

So there you have it, my most recent well researched fake blog about how cool Europe is. All the while we have been hanging out in Wimberley Texas with Ned and Elda just sitting on the poarch gosipping, sipping tea, and knitting warm ski hats so that next winter when I am skiing the steep and deep again with my buddies my head dosent get cold!

Don't forget to check out the next two Blog post. I have not emailed you all since I last posted.

Note: Any spelling errors in these pages were indroduced intentionally to demonstrate new and improved ways of spelling old, worn-out words.

I am a Manney

So a year ago I spent most of my days living out of my back pack.(see picture) After a sabitical from work (i.e can't get a job in Germany) I have once again picked the backpack back up. However this time it's not to go into the Grand Canyon, but to a play date and the pack contains a 19th month little girl. Yes what you are thinking is true, someone has intrusted their little girl to me; can you beleive it.

I have graduated from a "Hausman" (made up German word for a guy that does not have a job) to a "Manney" or a Man/nanney. While some men would consider it a major blow to the ego to

A. Not be able to get a job and

B. Be called a "Manney"

I have decided to take a different approach for a couple of reason.

1) This little girls is really very cool

2) I have not laughed this much at work in a long time

3) I get to take a snack break

4) Her books are at my reading level

5) If she has nap time that means I have nap time

6) She is really funny

7) I get to play hide and go seak

8) Old ladies smile at me and say what I think are nice things to me in German when I take her out on the town.

9) They have a killer 401 K plan.. (not really)

10) I get to ask questions like "are you poopy"

So normaly I write about whats going on in Europe/our life over here. Today we are going to take a little time out from all that fun stuff to get more educated about the world we live in now and in the future.
The first one I am going to call my tree huggin moment of the day. It deals with Global warming; now don't be scared, just watch the video its worth your time.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bDsIFspVzfI

The other link could help you figure out the dizzing world of our 2008 Presidintail elections. Its really kind of interesting, and could get you up to speed on the issues if you have not been doing your homework on our very important up coming elections.
http://www.speakout.com/VoteMatch/senate2006.asp?quiz=20

Sorry for the lack of pictures this week, but both of our laptops have now blown up. Fortunatly last week I went out and bought and external hard drive so it was not a total loss.

And don't worry this Blog will turn back into "Where in the world are Erin and Patrick" next week when I give you an update from our adventure this weekend in Greece. Cross your fingers I might get to go climbing outside!! I just hope I don't test out the Greek hospitals!!
Hope you are all doing well

Patrick

Note: Any spelling errors in these pages were indroduced intentionally to demonstrate new and improved ways of spelling old, worn-out words.

Y2K+8

Have you ever had something that you keep putting off and the longer you put it off the harder it seams to do? Well that's how this blog has been for me. Erin and I have been busy (by Germany standards) and I just kept putting off writing this blog. So I am sorry to my faithful Blog readers. I am sure it seams like last year when I last posted.

Anyway onto what we have been up to...
December 17th:
Went to the airport and picked up some friends that we met while traveling in Belgium (I know that must sound very exotic). These guys are great they don't have a home because they are in constant travel mode. They work as Flight attendants so when they are not working they fly off to another country (for free). This time they flew off to Berlin to hang out with us; how cool. It was nice because I was able to brush up on my tour guiding skills so that I would be on my game when my mom got into town. The fact that they pretty much have to fly some place on their days off means that we should see them sometime soon hopefully in Colorado.

December 20th:

Dropped off our friends at the airport and picked up my mom 10 minuets later. The last time I spent Christmas with my mom was some time last millennium; needs less to say that this was an over due visit. It was great to see her and show her around all the cool things Berlin has to offer (good beer, brats, and lots of historical stuff). My mom must think that all we do is go to parties at friends houses, drink wine, eat fatty foods, and go to museums, because it was truly a marathon of Christmas parties and food.

Christmas Day:
Santa made the trip all the way to Berlin! In all reality Erin's mom made sure that we would not feel left out from the normal Christmas festivities of the States (Thanks Gail). It was nice to wake up and have Christmas with my two favorite ladies (Erin and my mom). They day was pretty relaxed, we slept in, opened presents, made real American sticky buns, and went to a very nice (by nice I mean it had lots of different forks to use) dinner at a friends house.
Erin headed off to Whales on the 26th and my mom headed back on the 27th. So if you are doing the math on that one you will realize that I was all alone in Berlin. I would like to say that I did something really cool while Erin was gone, but in all honesty I played a bunch of cribbage and filled out scholarship applications. I did however have one crazy night.

It all started a couple of days before New Years. I was walking to the local grocery store (the Ledil) to get some food. As I was walking out I passed some 10 year olds with a twinkle in their eyes and some serious fireworks in their hands. Now I am not one to be out done by a couple of ten year olds so I promptly walked in and bought the "mega party pack" and something called the "Big Crackles" all for 10€. Now I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania; every year 4th of July Mr. Mason would put on a very nice fire works show in our local park. I was pretty sure that I would out do his shows with the firepower I had just bought.

(Check out the Big Crackle I set off in front of our house: HIT PLAY)
Its 3am on the 28th and I wake up to 1/4 sticks of dynamite being blown up a few blocks away. No one else seamed to think it was odd that people where setting off bombs at 3 am. The next night I fell asleep to fireworks blowing up every few minutes.

December 31st: its 5pm and people are already setting off fireworks ever 20-30 seconds. Its going to be an interesting night because I am heading down to the center of town to hang out with a million of these pyrotechnic lovin Germans; I can't wait!
It's 8 pm the excitement is really starting to build so we head off to the center of town amid a now constant attack of fire works. It really seams a little dangerous. Hanging out with a million people in one place was really pretty cool, we hung out eat some brats, drank some beer, wrestled in the forest, counted the seconds until midnight, drank some more beer, watched fire works go off; you know the usual New Years stuff.

On the way home is when it got a little weird. We had to walk home via the Teirgarten and people where blowing up fireworks right and left. The constant explosions from the 1/4 sticks and the smoke they created really made me think about the scene that I would have seen in this exact location 60 years prior. 500,000 Russians died in pretty much the same place I was walking trying to take Berlin; in all honesty the fireworks made it all a little spooky.

Erin got home on the 1st just long enough to wash some clothes and repack so that we could head off to Krakow Poland. Our neighbors had invited us to their little cabin about 35 kilometers outside of Krakow. It was so nice to be outside of a city! It was also interesting to see the difference between Germany and Poland; both have felt the grip of communism, but one (Germany) has seen alot of international money so that it could rebuild when the wall fell. The other (Poland) is doing its best to try and get out from under the mess that 60 years of socialism has created. I would say if you are ever in the area Poland would be a great country to see, for the beauty of its people, for its amazing country side, and to witness the spirit that allowed them to survive Socialism.

(Hanging out in Poland)

WOW! I hope you survived this long blog.. I will try to do a better job at keeping you all updated. Up next for Erin and Patrick is the search for some more sun. We booked tickets to Athens Greece for a 3 day weekend in January. There is also a rumor that I might be able to find some rock to climb while I am in Greece. So keep your fingers crossed for me.

Live from Berlin Germany

Patrick