Laura Beth in Germany

   It's Octoberfest season! What better way to celebrate than to buy myself the traditional garb: a bonafide dirndl. After making a trip to the local NKD department store and bartering with the cashier about a small, fixable mistake with the charm chain on the bodess, I bought this thing for just 30 Euro and rode home proudly with it in my little bike basket. And of course, I needed a better backdrop for you all than my living room, so I had a little fun with Photoshop. Happy Octoberfest! 

Drumroll please... here are the long-awaited photos of Marlene's daughter Philina. Today I drove up to Karlsruhe with Marlene to pick up Annika for her fall break, and we made a little pit stop in the castle park there to eat ice cream and stretch our legs. These are a few photos from our walk.         Philina is a very happy kid. She's rarely fussy, and even though she has a slight cold right now, she didn't cry once in the car. She likes to say "doot doot doot doot" and dance to her own music. She also loves animals, and runs toward any pigeon or squirrel she sees. We had a lovely afternoon, followed by a huge delicious dinner back in Großbottwar with the Brosis. 

The city of Ludwigsburg is really fascinating - so much culture and history are available if you know where to look. It's an army town, founded by a fat, 6-foot-tall duke who demanded that a town be built up around his summer castle. During World War II, only Ludwigsburg and Heidelberg were spared bombings because both cities contained barracks in which the Allied forces could house their own soldiers. There are numerous homes where famous German figures (Schiller, Goethe) have lived or spent the night. Aside from all that, they throw really GREAT festivals...   Here are a few photos from the Venecian Festival we attended last weekend in Ludwigsburg. It was a little expensive ( €10 entrance fee), but it was well worth it to see all the incredible costumes! There was also live entertainment all night, on different stages set up around the market square. We met these two ladies (?) at the entrance. After entering, Fabian took the opportunity to try on an antique pirate hat ...

A few weekends ago, Fabian and I volunteered to pick up his grandparents from their 5-week long vacation at a mineral spa in southeastern Bavaria. His parents suggested we make a small trip out of it, and spend the day exploring Passau - the city of 3 rivers. So we booked our train tickets, found a cheap hotel room, and left Kleinbottwar at 6 a.m. that Saturday. Our first matter of business upon arrival was finding some warm food and cold beer. We stopped by the visitor's center for a city map and discovered that the "Baroque Festival" was going on in town, and on our way to the restaurant, we saw marching bands, jokers on stilts, and women in HUGE gowns and wigs, fanning themselves as they watched the medieval-style musicians on the street corners. We sat inside at the restaurant because it was overcast and a little chilly, and ate Spätzle with cheese. We tasted the local beer from Innstadt Brewery - in operation since 1318. (Enlarge the photo and you rea...

Good news! I can tentatively say: I FOUND A JOB! The Berlitz language school in Stuttgart, located right next to the central train station (the bahnhof), sent me an email yesterday telling me that they were very impressed with my two interviews, and could easily see me as a great addition to their team! Berlitz operates worldwide with over 500 locations in 70 different countries. Those numbers include 50 locations within 24 U.S. states - and includes a school in St. Louis! It was explained to me in my 2nd interview, that after 2 years of teaching, employees have the opportunity to enroll in leadership training within the company, or to remain on staff as [the German equivalent of a] salaried teacher. You can also country-hop and transfer to any location in the world once you've proven yourself! Here's a link to their website:  http://www.berlitz.us/About-Berlitz/67/ Now, while excitement IS exploding out of me, I still haven't seen or signe...

There have been a variety of changes around our place since the last update, beginning with the addition of five very cute little fish. We have 4 female guppies and 1 male (the one with the leopard print tail). Before yesterday, they were hanging out in Fabi's old room upstairs, but they are now officially part of the family down here on the ground level. Their little tank is in the dining room. We've also entirely reclaimed the garden. You've seen the photos from move-in day, and I am proud to present the fruits of 2 days of labor - a clean patio, a visible fence, and plenty of space to sit outside and eat dinner, or lay in the sun.   Another welcome change is the brightening of our living room by adding a postcard collage to the giant wooden monstrosity. Turns out Fabian collects postcards just like I do - and we didn't know that about each other until last weekend!     Here is a closer view of the collage: While I have no refrigerator...

Hello, Family! So, here we go... the first round of Alps photos! This first one is our view the morning we left. A bus drove us from our hotel in the valley up to about the half-way mark altitude-wise. Lots of shade because the mountains are just so darn huge. This photo overlooks the "Lechtal" - the valley of the Lech River. This is a group photo of the adults we went with. There were 6 of us all together. Fabi and I are not featured in this lovely shot, but you can see Markus and Anja (friends of the family) and Margit and Hansi (the latter being his normal goofy self). Then we have my wonderful Julie Andrews impression. ... and some robustly healthy cows who let us walk right through their grazing space. How the cows made it up to that altitude eludes me, but they were there nontheless, bells a' ringing. Fabian strikes a Tirolan pose at the almost-top. From this point (which is comparable in height to Emerald Lake at the end of on our hike in Colo...