suziebeezieland

even more salzburg(bob's special tours "sound of music" tour)

If you're ever in Salzburg, I recommend taking the Sound of Music tour through Bob's Special Tours. (This is the name of an actual tour agency. It is not my husband making random, witty, and entirely irreverent comments whilst driving through Europe. Although that tour is pretty fun, too.) 

I know a Sound of Music (SOM) tour sounds very touristy, and it unabashedly is. As I mentioned before, most Austrians have no idea what the SOM is. (Apparently those who do know it are either involved in the tourist trade it brings to Salzburg, or are frustrated by its inaccuracies.) But the tour was also a fantastic overview of Salzburg, and we saw and learned things we would never have seen or learned on our own.

Bob's Special Tours (recommended, might I add, by our good friend Rick Steves, as well as Fodor's and Frommer's) is great because they use eight-person minivans rather than big tour buses. It feels cozy and personal, and you can go places the big tour buses cannot.

When you go to Bob's Special Tours at Rudolfskai 38, you see the view up top there. I know by now you have become very good at orienting yourself in Salzburg. :D You are facing north (and slightly east), looking across the Salzach river towards the "New Town," which as we mentioned before is actually hundreds of years old. 

Then you get in the van and zoom off with a delightful tour guide. Our guide was a young Austrian woman with an Irish accent. When I asked her about that, she explained that her Irish boyfriend had influenced her English dialect. :)  She was delightful, and very knowledgeable about Salzburg.

Our first stop was the Mirabell Gardens, which are part of Mirabell Palace. Do you remember when I mentioned that Salzburg was run by prince-archibishops who pretty much held the ultimate in both secular and religious power? These gardens were laid out for one of those guys in 1730.

Do you recognize this rearing Pegasus statue in the Mirabell Gardens? It's from the SOM scene when the kids (attired in playclothes made from draperies) all dance before they line up on the stairs.

 

Here are the stairs where they lined up, a.k.a. "The Do-Re-Mi Steps." :)

 

And here's a view of the rest of the gardens. Doesn't the castle look nice up there behind it?

One of the best views of Salzburg is from the Museum of Modern Art on Mönchsberg, because (1) its elevation offers a great panoramic view, and (2) you cannot see the Museum of Modern Art on Mönchsberg when you are standing in front of it and facing away from it. :) 

Its facade is hideous (I won't even show it to you . . . it's probably meant as a sophisticated ironic statement about something, but it's just ugly), and our tour guide apologized profusely for its existence. But its views are breathtaking.

Here's something neat our tour guide pointed out as we drove along. There is writing under the eaves on many of these old Salzburg homes.

The date on the left is the date when the home was built.

 

And the date on the right is the year in which it was most recently renovated.

("An gottes segen, ist alles gelegen" is literally "with God's blessings, all is," which means "Everything depends on God's blessings." At least, I think. Let me know if I'm wrong.)

 

Here is a photo of the Untersberg from our van. It's in the alps between Salzburg and Berchtesgaden, Germany. The Untersberg is important to Salzburg, and is a symbol of Salzburg. This is one reason the makers of SOM wanted to include it in the film. The scene at the end of the movie, where the von Trapps flee Austria by hiking to Switzerland over the mountains . . . that was filmed here, near Berchtesgaden.

Unfortunately, Berchtesgaden is home to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, and is a very bad place to hike towards if you're trying to flee the Nazis. The real von Trapps pretended to go on a mountain hike (they went hiking frequently) but then hopped a train to Italy. Switzerland is actually a five hour drive from Salzburg.

Hey, do you remember the Salzburg Panorama in my last Salzburg post, when I told you to pay attention to that last house? It was the front of this house. (This is the back of that house.) Do you recognize it?

 

Yeppers. This is Schloss Leopoldskron, and its back facade was the back of the von Trapp home. Do you remember the scene where the Baroness is waiting with Captain von Trapp to meet Maria and the kids, and they row up in a boat and fall out? That's here. (You can just see the back terrace where the Baroness lamely tried to play ball with the kids, and where they sat around drinking and talking. We got closer than this, but I wanted to show you this photo because the lake looks pretty with the reflection.)

According to our tour guide, the actress who played Gretl (the youngest) could not swim, but nobody knew this. She said that Gretl's expression when she stands up in the water after the boat falls over is one of pure (and real) terror. She also told us that the water was deep, so they built it up so that the actors could stand up in the water when they got out of the boat. Apparently, whatever mixture of stuff they used to build up the lakebed was a good medium for water lilies to grow, which they did, for many years after the movie.

Do you see the red belfry in the photo below? That's the Nonnberg Abbey (Stift Abbey) where the real-life Maria spent time as a novice nun.  In real life, she also returned here to marry Captain von Trapp at the gothic church there. No movie filming was done here . . . the convent was recreated in some Salzburg movie studios, and some filming was done at another convent. (The filming at the other convent got the nuns there in trouble. The nun actresses in the movie hiked up their habits and smoked cigarettes in the courtyard during their filming breaks, and tourists passing by the gate thought Salzburg nuns were wild and wooly. It took them a long time to live down their bad-girl reputation after that. Our tour guide said her mother's friend has been a nun in that convent for over 50 years, and corroborated this anecdote.)

When it came time for Maria's wedding in the movie, the filmmakers thought the church where she actually got married was too plain. They wanted baroque rather than gothic architecture. :) Later on we'll see where the wedding was actually filmed.

 

This is Frohnburg Palace. Its courtyard and front facade were used as the front of the von Trapp house. (Remember Maria walking along this wall when she's first going to work for them and singing "I have confidence"?)

The gazebo originally stood at Schloss Leopoldskron, but folks there got tired of pushy tourists trying to break into it to dance, so it was later recreated at Hellbrunn Palace. I think our guide told us that the interior scenes were shot on a set (it does look small for all that dancing around, doesn't it?) but I was kind of distracted because the best Christmas market in Salzburg is at Hellbrunn Palace, and I was trying to sneak a peek at it before we left.

 

Okay, this was my favorite part of the tour, and also Claire's, and maybe everybody's. It was one of the best parts of our whole trip. We took the scenic route out towards the Salzkammergut lake district. Our tour guide put on the soundtrack from the Sound of Music, and I could hear Claire singing the whole way. It was so cute. She looked out the window and was so happy. The scenery was incredible. It was also some of the only snow we saw on our entire vacation.

Our tour guide said that people often ask her how the homes and farms are kept so neat and tidy in Austria. She said there are four main reasons: (1) Austrians are trained from a very young age to handle their own trash ("take your trash with you") and tend to be green and not dump stuff, (2) Austria generates much revenue from tourists, and tourists expect Austria to be neat and tidy, (3) Austrians tend to buy one home and live in it forever, so are motivated to keep it up, and (4) reasons 1 through 3 create peer pressure to keep things neat and tidy. :)

We happened to zoom past Red Bull worldwide headquarters, and I tried to photograph the buildings, which were cool looking, but all you get below is a shiny idea of what they're like.

 

Did you know Red Bull is an Austrian product? It is. Although Austrian Red Bull drinks are three times stronger than American red bull drinks. (Our FDA will not approve that much caffeine in a single drink.) Austrian Red Bulls are the equivalent of seven espressos!

Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian entrepreneur who founded Red Bull, is very popular. Our tour guide told us that if you want to do something insane in the world of extreme sports, write to Red Bull, because they will probably sponsor you. :)

As we got out to the Salzkammergut lake district, we stopped at a restaurant to drink coffee (Claire had hot chocolate) and cake. Can I describe the wonder of delicious cake and warm drinks enjoyed at dusk in a warm room with a view of a lake and the alps? This is Lake Something Something. (Our Bob's Special Tour Guide told us, but I forgot because I was thinking about cake.)

It was heaven.

 

Here is Marilyn's cake.

Here is Bob's cake.

 

I forgot to photograph Claire's cake. Here is mine . . . I ordered sachertorte, which you will have to eat when you go to Austria. It was so good. I'm sorry about the flash.

After this break (the entire tour was four hours long) we went to Mondsee, where Maria's wedding was filmed at Mondsee Cathedral.

There are corpses in the altar. (They were removed for the wedding.) Two priests take care of this cathedral, and one is a fan of the corpses, and another is not. Depending on who is in charge at any given time, the corpses are in place or in storage. When we were there, the Fan-of-the-Corpse Priest was in charge. One corpse is sitting up (circled with a blue circle in the second photo), and four are lying down (blue arrows point to them). I think they used to be bishops.

 

 

Yeppers.

But hey, the ceiling is pretty.

 

The church looked small compared to Maria's wedding church, and our guide explained that they filmed her coming down the aisle three times, to make it seem bigger.

It is a very lovely church (except for the whole corpse thing), and I think they've been able to keep things maintained very well because of all the tourist revenue.

And that was the end of our wonderful Sound of Music tour, which I do hope you can take one day, because it's very informative and delightful. We zoomed back to Salzburg in the dark, and chatted with our guide, and it was a lovely day in every way.

a nashional menagerie

Santa brought Claire a CD she has been enjoying for a couple days . . . and so have I. :) It's Classics for Children, done by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, with narration by Hugh Downs. (I enjoy his voice.)

The first track is about 16 minutes of Camille Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals, with Downs reading Ogden Nash's poems written for the composition . . . it's great. Claire liked the puns she understood, but mostly loved the patter of Nash's language, and was full of wonder that the music "matched" the animals so well.

Tonight (after she was asleep) I got Ogden Nash's Zoo down from my bookcase. I was surprised to see from the inscription in front that my mom and dad gave it to me for Christmas exactly twenty years ago! I got so excited I wanted to wake Claire right up, but I didn't, because I'm not crazy. Just excitable. :D

 

Anyway, I think I'm going to have to order The Best of Ogden Nash (which I stumbled upon online, and which just came out about a year ago) because it looks really good, and I hope Claire will eventually grow into him completely. I'd like a print copy of the these poems he did for Carnival of the Animals, which are in this compilation. One of the "animals" is the pianist. :) Here is Nash's poem for them:

Some claim that pianists might be human
And quote the case of Mr. Truman.
Saint-Saëns, upon the other hand,
Considered them a scurvy band.
Ape-like they are, he said, and simian,
Instead of normal men and wimian.

I was very surprised a bit later to hear what I took to be A Postcard to Henry Purcell, which is my favorite track from the wonderful Pride & Prejudice soundtrack.  I was surprised because I thought that A Postcard to Henry Purcell was composed by Dario Marianelli, but the track I was listening to was The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten.

I went online, and discovered that Henry Purcell, an English baroque composer, wrote music for a tragedy called Abdelazar in 1677. Britten's The Young Person's Guide is based on a theme from this Abdelazar music by Purcell, and then Marianelli's Postcard to Henry Purcell is a version of this same theme. I thought that was interesting.  They're all very haunting and lovely.

I think collections of classical music for babies and kids are not always great, and that sometimes it's better to just get a good symphonic recording than a special compilation made just for little ears . . . but Santa done good with this one, and I recommend it to you without hesitation. :)

merry christmas!

In this the love of God was made manifest among us,
that God sent his only Son into the world,
so that we might live through him.
In this is love,
not that we have loved God
but that he loved us
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
(1 John 4:9-10)

painted apples

My favorite Christmas decorations come from the grocery store. I love a bowl of bright orange clementines (clementines are a version of Mandarin orange, first introduced into southern California in 1909, in my parents' town of Riverside . . . some people call them "Christmas Oranges"), with maybe a few candy canes or some cinnamon sticks or walnuts nestled in.

I also think plain red apples and walnuts are really pretty lined up on a windowsill, maybe with some small white votive candles in between them.

You can also paint the apples. (I guess you could also paint the walnuts. I've certainly seen gilded walnuts.)  Painting apples is a fun Christmas craft with the kids. You don't need much:

Some pretty red apples (Red Delicious or bigger Rome Beauties work well)
Some white latex paint or paint pens
Some paintbrushes
A rubberband

If you're worried about things being straight, put a rubberband around the apple, slightly lower than the middle, to use as a guideline for the bottom of your band of painting.

Use any motif you might use in cross stitch that looks Christmas-y to you . . . hearts (my favorite), stars, little x's, little trees, dots and lines . . . and paint around in a band until you get back to where you started. (If you decide to do hearts, puff paint works well. Just put two dots next to each other, and then "pull" them into each other at the bottom for sweet puffy hearts. Puff paint isn't great for painting anything skinny.)

They kind of look like little apples wearing Nordic sweaters. :D

Painted apples are a short-lived craft, because the apples will eventually shrivel up. But they're great for Christmas. Before Claire came along, I used to make them perfectly, but now (as you can see) we just paint and they're wobbly and messy, and it's a lot more fun than when I sat squinting and making them perfect. :)

christmas eve dinner

Do you have plans for food on Christmas Eve? Does your family have any Christmas Eve food traditions? I decided this morning that I will make my mom's White Chicken Chili for the three of us. (We will go to my parents' house on Christmas Day for the real feast!)  Here is the recipe, in case this winter you need some good comfort food. I've posted it before, but it's my favorite, so here it is again. :)

My Mom's White Chicken Chili

1 lg sweet onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
olive oil
2 cans small white beans, S&W, drained
2 c chicken stock/broth
2 c more or less cooked, shredded chicken breast meat
4 oz can chopped Ortega mild green chilis
2 t cumin
1/4 - 1/2 t cayenne pepper - (1/2 = very hot)
salt and pepper to taste
1 c sour cream
1 c shredded cheese, cheddar or Colby/Jack

In a large pot, sauté onions until transparent; add garlic and sauté. Add beans, chilis, broth, cooked chicken, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and cook uncovered at a simmer for 45 minutes. Add cheese and stir constantly until cheese is melted. Remove from heat; add sour cream. Serve with warm tortillas or corn bread.

more salzburg

I slept in until almost ten on our second day in Salzburg, because I didn't get to sleep until four a.m. Bob and Marilyn and Claire were going to the castle, and I was tired and had been to the castle in 1993, so I decided to stay back and hang around town so that I could be sleepy by myself rather than pulling everyone down with me. :) And I'm kind of scared of the funicular that takes you up to the castle. So after a nice breakfast at our hotel (which has this lovely tribute to its tercentenary on the front door), we headed out.

After bidding adieu to the castle-goers, I wandered around town for a couple hours. (We agreed to meet up again at Café Tomaselli.)

I liked all these pretty modes of transportation. I guess I said "moo" when I saw the first one.

I also liked the inside of this tiny Lanz shop, which had exquisite traditional wool dresses for tiny children that started at about $200 U.S. (Needless to say, I looked but did not buy.)

I was fond of this Ralph-Lauren-meets-Switzerland-ish room in a home store I peeked through, too.

I guess I said "moo" when I saw this.

I thought this coat was so pretty.

These are more giant horse baths, adjacent to the Prince's stables. I managed to obliviously walk right past Mozart's birthplace as I cruised around on my own, without Rick Steves . . . I didn't realize this until I got home and looked at the guide book to see where I'd been. Oh, well. You can't see everything, and I really like horses.

You can make a lot of money in Salzburg as a cliff-inspector. They get checked out regularly, to avoid landslides that kill people.

Did you know that George Clooney works for Nestle? He was everywhere.

I was kind of obsessed with the cliff. Really, stuff was just built right into it.

I was taking a photo of this church when the bells started clanging for noon, and I almost dropped my camera. It's hard to not know what time it is with so many church bells going off all the time.

When I am in charge of the world, all McDonald's will have signs like this.

Time to go wait at Café Tomaselli. I went in the back door, and noticed this sign. Konstanze Mozart was Mozart's wife. (Do you remember her from the movie Amadeus?) She and her kids and her second husband, George, lived next door to the café.

The Tomaselli family who set up the café in 1753 are still running the place.

Coffee is a BIG DEAL in Austria. The Turks attacked Vienna some time (I think in the late fifteenth century, but Google it if you're curious -- my knowledge of the Ottoman Empire is pretty negligible, but I pay attention to their coffee) and left behind a lot of coffee beans, so the "Wiener Kaffeehaus" (Vienna Coffeehouse) was invented, and spread across Europe.  I'll talk about that more when I post our photos from Vienna. But anyway, here is one of the most delicious cups of coffee I've ever been served:

When Bob and Marilyn and Claire joined me, we took off to go on our wonderful Sound of Music tour, which I will post about next I post. But for now, let me jump to the last thing we did (the following morning) before we left Salzburg, which was to visit the Salzburg Panorma.

 

According to Rick Steves (my travel guru), in the early 19th century, "360-degree 'panorama' paintings of great cities or events were popular." Really, this was very cool. You stood in the middle and a very, very detailed panorama painting of Salzburg was all around you.  You could play "Where's Waldo" with it! :) Can you find cute and colorful laundry in the following?

 

Okay, remember this house from the Panorama, because next time I post about our trip I'm going to tell you about it. The back of it is probably already familiar to you . . .

fulness of god in helpless babe

"In Christ Alone"
Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2001 Kingsway Thankyou Music

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

salzburg

After our time in Nürnberg, we hopped a train to Salzburg, Austria. This is a lovely Baroque city that originally made its money from salt (hence the "Salz" in both "Salzburg" and the "Salzach River," upon which it is situated) and now makes its money from tourism.

You may know Salzburg as the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, or from its role in The Sound of Music. (Most Austrians are completely unfamiliar with this movie.) Or, you may know Salzburg as the place from whence your nice flannel Lanz nighties came. :)

We stayed at the Hotel Goldene Krone, which was clean and neat, and had a tiny elevator, which made luggage transportation much nicer. It was on the Linzergasse, which has few vehicles. However, I was pretty sure one of us was going to get run over by a bicycle.

This was the view to the left outside our room:

And this was the view straight ahead:

And this was the view to the right:

And St. Sebastian Church was the view to the farther right, if I kind of hung out the window. Salzburg was nicknamed "the Rome of the North." It has 38 Catholic churches, two Protestant churches, and one synagogue. St. Sebastian's had big bells that rang on the half hour until 9:30 at night. The second night, I thought they quit ringing at 9:00, fell asleep, and then woke up half an hour later, and stayed awake until 4:00 in the morning. Yay, jet lag. (I read almost three entire novels on our vacation, which I will tell you about in a later post.)

This was the window I was hanging out. I thought it was so pretty:

Our hotel had a cute courtyard that we couldn't get to because it's wintertime, but it was cute, anyway.

Our hotel was north of the river in the "New Town" section of Salzburg, which is "new" only in the sense that it is medieval rather than Roman. (Our hotel was built in the 15th century.) It's a very, very old city. :) After we settled into our room, we walked a bit south, and crossed the Staatsbrucke bridge over the Salzach river and into the Old Town.

There's the Hohensalzburg Fortress in the background, above the twin spires of Salzburg Cathedral. They never really had to use the fortress, because as Rick Steves explains, it was so foreboding that nobody attacked it for a thousand years. Then, when Napoleon and his guys showed up, Salzburg just surrendered. (This was a wise decision.) So they were never actually taken by force.

My favorite cities are centered around rivers.

Getreidegasse (old Salzburg's "main drag") and some of the surrounding streets in the Old Town are known for their beautiful iron signs. It's kind of a congested shopping area, but the architecture is really pretty.

Well, Hello, Dali!

Claire was mesmerized by the touristy Easter and Christmas shops.

We headed over to Residenzplatz, which was once a Roman forum.

Salzburg had kind of a messy history run by leaders known as "Prince-Archbishops," because they had both secular and religious authority, which is just never really a good idea, if you ask me. Power corrupts, especially when you are a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. But they're mighty interesting to read about, in a titillating, celebrity-gossip type of way.

Anyway, because of this connection with Rome, all things Italian (including architecture) were hot, hot, hot. Local artists would sometimes even Italianize their names in order to raise their rates.

There was a Christmas market set up here, and I thought you might like to see these garland thingies:

&

She was such a trooper!

We headed over to Salzburg Cathedral, which is full of many interesting things, including the font where Mozart was baptized. He was also an organist here for two years. (Incidentally, Amadeus means "beloved by God.")

It also has a prayer chapel (downstairs with the crypts) that has a neat door.

A tour guide we had the next day was somewhat mortified that the city had chosen to allow Kronehit Radio 94.0 to put advertising banners on the front of the Cathedral. They were hard to miss.

Dusk fell. Look how mysterious and foreboding the castle looks in the moonlight. I wouldn't attack it, would you?

This fountain is actually a horse bath. Horses walked in one end, dirty, and walked out clean, the other end. There is a very cool puzzle above this horse bath. It says "Leopold the Prince Built Me," written using the letters LLDVICMXVXI, which total 1732. This is the year the horse bath was built. :)

If you walk through this gate you can go see St. Peter's Cemetery, which was one of my favorite things on our entire trip.

Do you recognize this? The Hollywood set for the cemetery where the von Trapp family hid (after we found out Rolf was actually a Nazi, and loved Hitler more than he loved Liesl) was modeled after this cemetery.

But if the von Trapps had hidden in this cemetery in real life, they would not have been able to squeeze behind the gravestones, which are built into the cliff. You can't miss the cliff. It's huge. Monks used to live up this cliff, somehow.

St. Peter's Cathedral and this whole area was just so beautiful as the light faded.

And look at this. This is the Stiftskeller St. Peter restaurant. It is the oldest restaurant in Europe. Charlemagne ate here in A.D. 803. I wonder what he ate.

We ourselves were hungry and tired, so we headed back across the bridge towards our hotel and the restaurants north of the river.

Claire was not too tired, however, to eat her icecream dessert.

There is more Salzburg to come! Because you haven't even been on The Sound of Music tour with me yet, and that was fantastic! :)

jane cumberbatch's make-and-do christmas wreath

image from Jane Cumberbatch's Pure Style monthly newsletter

Here's something very exciting. (At least, it's very exciting to me!) My very favorite designer of all time, Jane Cumberbatch, whom I raved about previously, and who is the author of my very favorite decorating book of all time (Pure Style, which has recently been combined with Pure Style Outdoors and rereleased as Pure Style Home and Garden), has started a little Make-and-Do series. Here is a video of Jane showing us how to make a simple Christmas wreath. She uses rosemary from her garden.

I love the recent post on her blog when she talks about having a kind of "crafty stand-off with all that is crass and commercial about Christmas." :)

silke leffler

My favorite booth at the Nürnberg Christkindlesmarkt this year carried stationery and paper goods -- especially Christmas cards and Advent calendars -- from a company called Grätz Verlag.  I especially fell in love with the whimsical, quirky work of an artist named Silke Leffler. Since coming home and Googling her, I've discovered some of her marvelous work is available through Amazon, Nouvelles Images, and Easy Art. It looks like Holly at decor8 did a post about her a couple months ago, and it turns out Silke designed some bedding for Ikea I've long loved that Amy at inspireco blogged about here.

I just love her bright colors, her whispy, fairy-like people, her skinny hearts, her Richard Scarry-ish detail, and the Dumbledorish Santas. :)

 

 

 

On her own site you can see more illustrations here and her children's books here and a neat showing she had here. If you go here and click on each "Artikel" you can see bits of her work published in magazines, too. And if you click here, it will open a pdf file which contains more of her work, and a good interview in both German and English where she talks about her creative process.

at nuremberg castle (kaiserburg nürnberg) with bob and suzanne

Suzanne: The prettiest view of the city is usually from the castle.

Bob: It's certainly the most defensible position in the city.

Suzanne: Was this the moat?

Bob: Yeah. It smells better now than it would have 500 years ago. It would have been full of stagnant water and refuse.

Bob: If you could get past the moat, you had to get past the ramparts.

Suzanne: What are ramparts? Hey, what are those triangle thingies with moss on them?

Bob: The ramparts. They're cut away like a "V" to give the widest field of fire for the shooter. They could easily target people trying to scale the adjacent walls, for example.

Suzanne: Ooh, the moss is so pretty. And that ivy!

Bob: If you got past those arrows, you'd run down this tunnel into the next courtyard, but they'd pour boiling oil on you through the openings at the top.

Suzanne: You know, they really could have been more welcoming. They're really not very welcoming.

Bob: If you made it through the tunnel and the oil . . .

Suzanne: Ooh, I love these pretty arches and picturesque cobblestones . . .

Bob: . . . there would be more arrows coming at you through the arrow slits in the walls and tower.

Suzanne: LOOK at that tower! That is so gorgeous. It looks like verdigris on top, with all that blue-green. That's just gorgeous.

Suzanne: Yay! The great view!

Suzanne: And look, a Christmas tree!  They are welcoming!

Suzanne: Why did they paint red and white stripes on so much of the wood outside?

Bob: Feng shui.

Bob: In 1100 the castle was just a fortification.

Suzanne: I love those mini-cows! Moo!

Bob: Did you know that you moo every time you see a cow?

Suzanne: Do I really?

 

Bob: And then by 1300 it had grown a bit.

Suzanne: I wonder where the cows went.

Suzanne: This is horse armor, right?

Bob: Yes. It's called barding.

Suzanne: It looks like armor for a pig. That is going to give me nightmares. It reminds me of the ring-wraiths in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

 

Suzanne: Here we have some pretty flower spurs followed by some Mickey Mouse stirrups.

Bob: You could be taking pictures of the cool weapons.

 

Suzanne: And this is a codpiece with a sad face on it.

Bob: I'd say he's more serious than sad.

Suzanne: And this is "armor," is it not?

Bob: Field plate armor. Each section has a different name.

Suzanne: What's the head part called?

Bob: Seriously?

Suzanne: Yes.

Bob: It's the helmet!

Suzanne: No, wait, let me pick a harder one that normal people wouldn't know. What's the kneecap part called?

Bob: The kneecap part.

Suzanne: I know these. These are gauntlets. With real human skin underneath.

Bob: Those are leather gloves underneath.

Suzanne: It's scarier if I say "real human skin."

  

Suzanne: I know this one! It's a crossbow. What's it made of?

Bob: Wood.

Suzanne: Some special kind of wood?

Bob: From a tree.

Suzanne: What are these?

Bob: Swords.

Suzanne: But what's the fancy name?

Bob: Those ones on the right end are claymores. The ones on the left are probably broadswords. The one in the middle is probably a bastard sword.

Suzanne: Bob!

Bob: That's what it's called. It's halfway between a broadsword and a claymore.

 

 

Suzanne: Ooh, look at the pretty view.

 

Bob: When they jousted, the lance would rest there in the shoulder brace.

Suzanne: Do you have anything else to say about this armor?

Bob: Most of the armor here is ceremonial.

 

Suzanne: This is your dream house, isn't it?

Bob: Pretty much.

Suzanne: I thought so.

 

glitter, solo mandolin, & audiologist lying traps

I haven't been able to find my tube of lip gloss since we got back from Germany and Austria.  I love my lip gloss, because it makes my lips shiny in a Charlie's Angels sort of way, but it is not that sticky kind of lip gloss that makes your hair stick to your lips whenever you turn your head around.

So last night right before the limo was scheduled to pick us up, I grabbed a tube of lip gloss that Claire got in her Christmas stocking last year. She never wears it, but she likes to put it in her purse if she is playing I'm Packing for Vacation on the Moon.  (She goes to the moon about once a week with Hello Kitty.)

As I glanced in the mirror on the way out the door, I noticed that I had lovely shiny lips with sparkly green glitter all over them. I was really very grateful for that low, ambient mood-lighting in the limo. As soon as we got to the party, I made a beeline for the bathroom and just wiped it right off before I could alienate anyone with my disco alien lips.

It was a fun party. Bob won a bottle of wine and a Brita Water Filter pitcher (I've wanted one of those!) for answering some trivia questions correctly. We laughed a lot. Our sweet friends ended up getting stranded on the side of the freeway for awhile when the limo broke down (that's a long story), but eventually they made it to the party and I think that was the only glitch in the evening, besides the green glitter lips. 

The entertainment was super! Evan Marshall, who is the husband of a former employee at my husband's law firm, is a world-class mandolin player. It is unusual for someone to play solo mandolin. "To have a full musical experience as a solo mandolin player," he explained, "it is sometimes necessary for me to play duets by myself." I can't even begin to explain how fabulous it is to hear him play a solo mandolin in duo style. He explains that as he plays the melody tremolo, it sounds as if the tremolo is happening continuously. (Or do I mean continually?) But it's not . . . there are spaces in between. Into these spaces, he inserts a plucking, harp-like note, and this magical duo-style appears.  (I hope I have explained that correctly. I am not musical. He plays the melody and the accompaniment simultaneously, basically.) It really sounds like two people are playing it at once.

He is also apparently the world's fastest mandolinist.

The best thing (for me) is that he plays not only the classical Italian mandolin pieces, but also bluegrass! It's just so great.

If you have a couple minutes, I really encourage you to watch this video as he plays the William Tell Overture. It is so enjoyable! :) (It will make your fingers tired watching it!) And here is a lovely Tchaikovsky piece:

There are so more videos here and here. He also plays the violin! He was great at that, too. His wife is adorable and she sang with him a bit. Then one of the partners at Bob's law firm (a super jazz pianist) joined in, and we sang Christmas carols. It was so fun! The talent boggles the mind.

I had several fun conversations. One was with a pediatric audiologist.  She works with children with different degrees of hearing loss, and is sometimes involved in testing children's hearing.

"Do the kids ever lie?" Bob asked.

"Bob!" I said, and poked him.

"No, they do," she said, and her boyfriend added, "And the prisoners lie, too." (Hearing tests will get you out of school and jail temporarily, it seems.) And people trying to get worker's comp insurance sometimes lie about their hearing. In fact, the problem is so prevalent that she had taken an entire course in school that teaches audiologists how to spot people who are lying (for whatever reason) about their hearing.

"See? It was a good question." Bob said to me.

"It was," I admitted grudgingly.

"One thing we do that works with little kids," she explained, "and sometimes, surprisingly, with adults, is to tell them 'Say 'no' if you can't hear the beep' when they're taking hearing tests."

"No," the kids will say each time the machine beeps.

"Ah HA!" the audiologist will say. She said she loves it when she catches them. :D

It was such an enjoyable night. I would also like to explain to you how good some artichoke dip was and some cupcake frosting was, but I just don't have the words.

december just zips by so quickly

Hi ladies! I have more vacation photos, plus a couple fun and easy Christmas crafts to post before Christmas, but I haven't had a chance to get it together yet. We've had two weird weeks of sleep (and non-sleep) with jet lag on both ends of the trip, but I'm hoping this weekend brings a close to all that. I haven't been up past 8 p.m. this week. :)

I don't think I'll get a suziebeezieland newsletter out this month, and I doubt that I'll get a December version of the bookstore up, either. Maybe. We'll see.

I got the house cleaned and the laundry caught up on Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday I got the Christmas decorations out and did some of that.  Bob brought a Christmas tree home from work on Tuesday night, but when he walked in the door he found that Claire and I were asleep on the sofa already! :) (It was about 7 p.m.)  So we decorated it Wednesday night, instead. Bob and I both noted that something was missing this year, and then we remembered that we threw away all our glass balls last year, because they were getting chipped and old. We had said "we'll just get more next year." They really refract light, and the tree is not sparkly without them! I need to get to Target to get some.

Yesterday (Thursday) we had our Bible study Christmas party here.  We had fifteen women, and lots of good food and laughter and a fun gift exchange. This morning Bob and I went to the Friday chapel at Claire's school, because she got a little Citizen of the Month award for the character quality of "loyalty". It was so cute. She didn't know she was going to get it, so she was nervous and excited and shy, all at once. And confused as to why we were there! :)

Tonight my niece and nephew are coming over. Hooray!

Tomorrow night Bob and I have one of two Christmas parties to go to for his firm. I just found out we're going to it in a limo with the other partners and their wives. This is a nice convenience, but it might mean I need new shoes! I was expecting to be able to hide my shoes under the table, but I don't think I can hide them in a limo. :) We've got the other firm party on the 19th.

What do you have going on? Do you feel relaxed and comfortable, or are you busy with preparations for the holidays? Have you finished most of your shopping? I sure haven't. Do you have any parties to go to? Do you bake Christmas cookies or anything? Do you have any kids doing any Christmas shows or musicals or anything? :) Do tell!

nuremberg (nürnberg)

On Sunday afternoon (November 30th), we hopped a train from Munich to Nürnberg, which is home to Germany's largest and most famous Christkindlesmarkt, located on Hauptmarkt square.

Nürnberg was a very important medieval trading crossroads, and was a stronghold of the Holy Roman Empire. You have probably heard of Nürnberg in relation to the Nazis. The NSDAP held its annual Reichsparteitage (party rallies) there at the Nazi party rally grounds from 1923 to 1938. After WWII, in 1945 and 1946, an international tribunal tried German officials for war crimes in the famous Nürnberg Trials. As our very favorite travel writer, Rick Steves, says, "Today's Nürnberg is coming to terms with its Nazi past. Though the city tries to recast itself as the 'City of Human Rights,' its reputation as Hitler's favorite place for a big rally will be hard to shake."  Nürnberg's history also reminds visitors that anti-semitism predates the Nazis. Jewish people were historically forced to live in a swampy area close to the river until towns in Nürnberg merged and the river land became valuable. Charles IV then allowed his subjects to force out the Jews, and 600 were killed in the process.

Nürnberg former Nazi rally grounds are now Luitpoldhain park, and hold the Nazi Documentation Center, which Steves calls "a superb museum" that does its best to answer the question "How could the holocaust happen?" 

We stayed at the Lucas Hotel (recommended by Steves), and I recommend it to you as long as you're not afraid of stairs. :) It's so pleasant. There is a great cafe on the entry level and a good restaurant downstairs at the level of the river in back. So although the restaurant is in the "cellar", it has windows and a great view! :)

If you ever stay here, ask for room 401, which sleeps two people (in two separate twin beds right next to each other, which was standard in all the hotels we stayed in), is very private, and has fantastic views of the river. (Claire and her grandma slept in the room next door.) This was the view out our windows.

After we had settled in and quit panting from the bag drag up the stairs (I got off easy, but my husband and mother-in-law got a serious workout), we set out to explore the Christmas market.

 

Bob and Marilyn (Bob's mom) and I had come here about ten years ago, before Claire was born, but I didn't remember much about it except that I'd enjoyed it. (On that particular trip my luggage had been left behind on my bed in Virginia, so it was nice to have clothes and makeup this time.)

 

That first evening was quite crowded, because it was the first weekend of the market, and everyone was out enjoying the start of advent.

As we walked we got distracted by this store just for dogs. :)

The market takes place in the square in front of the Frauenkirche (Our Lady's Church). The church is located on the site of a former synagogue, and there is a Star of David on the floor inside.

The little markers at one end of the stalls and the church at the other helped keep me oriented. I'm not great with directions, and always need big markers. :D

This is the Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain) and was originally erected around 1385, but was replaced by a replica in the early 20th century. There are lots of important figures all over it, and if you want to know who they all are, you should Google Schöner Brunnen, because all I remember are King Arthur, Charlemagne, and King David. It's a very eclectic group of both the sacred and profane. :)

Here are Marilyn and Claire's hat looking at Zwetschgamännla, which are little prune people.

I loved these big stars, but they were electric (220v). Besides, how would they fit in my luggage?

I seem to have taken a lot of photos of candy. :) I'm not a big fan of nougat candy or marzipan, but it sure was pretty.

These potatoes made of marzipan cracked me up.

I loved the warm candied nuts in paper cones . . . the cashews were the best.

I didn't think any glass ornaments would survive a plane ride home, but they were fun to look at.

This was as close as we got to an inflatable Santa or snowman or similar during our entire trip. :)

There is a sweet little island across this bridge that we explored.

There are so many charming toy stores in Germany.

I don't know if you can see the crows in this photo (look carefully at the branches of the trees at left), but there were hundreds of them that came out at night, and left when the sun came up in the morning. They were LOUD right before sunrise. But they looked so cool in the tree branches.

I really did get a lot of mileage out of our good view. I hung out the windows whenever we were in our room, watching things.

We got a little snow one day we were in Nürnberg. Claire was so excited. It was her first time to ever be in falling snow. It was wet snow that melted quickly, but it was snow.

I bet you know who this witch and these two kids are. I haven't felt a real need to introduce Claire to the non-Disney versions of the works of Die Gebrüder Grimm yet, because really, they're pretty scary.

Our original travel plans had involved spending a day and night in Rothenberg, but once we'd gotten our luggage to the fourth floor of the Lucas, it seemed wise to leave it there as long as possible. :D And there was so much to see and do in Nürnberg that we decided to stay through Tuesday night (December 2nd).

Here's a gigantic version of the wooden Christmas pyramids. If you want your very own smaller version, you can find them online at Käthe Wohlfahrt. We spent a lot of time in the Käthe Wohlfahrt shops in Nürnberg. (There are two). They're super! :) The mother store is in Rothenberg.

My favorite part of vacations are just walking around looking at stuff. I could just walk around looking at stuff all day long every day. The world is so interesting.

This is Sebalduskirche (St. Sebald's Church). I strongly recommend the Sebald Salad at the Cafe Sebald west of St. Sebald's Church for dinner. Marilyn and I both agreed it was one of the best salads we'd ever had. (Cafe Sebald was another Rick Steves recommendation, and is a good place to eat when you're getting tired of bratwurst and carb-heavy traditional German fare. It's very charming on the inside, but none of my photos turned out because it was dark and I was eating while photographing.)

We also enjoyed lunch one afternoon at the Goldenes Posthorn. It has traditional Franconian specialties like bratwurst cooked on an open fire, and used to be Albrecht Dürer's favorite hangout.

When I am in charge of the world, all neon signs will be removed and replaced with these kinds of signs.

Despite her severe jet lag, suspicion of non-American food, the cold (above freezing most of the time, but still chilly for a California kid), and lots and lots of walking, this kid was just a trooper. She was game for anything.

The architecture is all so interesting.

One afternoon we were looking for a place to warm up, and stumbled across this great little cafe. I'm sorry that I can't remember what it's called, because you should go there.

We took a carriage ride around town that started here.

I spent a lot of time trying to keep Claire's hat over her ears but out of her eyes.

I loved the walk across the bridge back to our hotel each night.

Believe it or not, I have more Nürnberg to show and tell . . . but the castle is best saved for another day. And Bob has something to say about it, so stay tuned. :)

munich (münchen)

Hi ladies! :) How are you all doing? I missed you! We got back last night from our trip, and I thought perhaps I'd share some photos with you this week. We had a really great time, and I have absolutely zero complaints. :)

Tanya, you are the winner of the Christmas ornament drawing! If you email me your address, I will mail your ornament to you right away. It is so funny that you won, because I was flying right above you last night! St. John's came up on our screen on the airplane (the one that shows you where the plane is . . . so cool) and we just flew right over it. I waved at you. :) I was thinking about you and liking how you and your fellow St. John's folks are just sticking way out there in the Atlantic, ready to face whatever comes your way. I am completely intrigued by Newfoundland and Labrador, I have to say.  Anyway, congratulations!

I especially thought you all might like to see some fun German and Austrian Christmas decorations. Today I'll post about Munich, which was our first stop.

We flew into Munich on Saturday evening (November 29th) and stayed at a hotel at the airport, which was nice, since we were pooped!  There was a sweet little Christmas market set up right in the interior courtyard of the airport, with a skating rink and some stalls, and delicious hot chocolate. Claire pointed out that she has never in her whole life been allowed to drink as much hot chocolate as she was this past week. :D

The next morning we got up and went out to see Munich for a few hours before we took the train to Nuremberg. During our entire vacation, I just couldn't get over how almost every business, big or small, was entirely decked out for Christmas.  Often, windowboxes that hold geraniums and other flowers in the summertime were planted with greenery.  And there were Christmas trees everywhere!

I really liked how the greenery followed and enhanced the architectural details of the buildings.

This building had big gold-colored metal candles on all sides. It was striking!

We headed down to Marienplatz and the pedestrian zone.  (If any of you are nerds and ever played the Gabriel Knight video game that took place in Bavaria, on his second Schattenjäger case, you will remember Marienplatz. If I am the only person who knows Gabriel Knight, let's just pretend I didn't mention him, okay?)

This is the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall, built from 1867 until 1908 . . . it survived WWII bombing, so was US military headquarters in 1945), which dominates the Marienplatz.

The Neus Rathaus is famous for its glockenspiel, which has a little show every day at 11 and 12, depicting a 16th century royal wedding and a jousting match. The Bavarians are in blue and white, and they always win. (Here on the top tier you see the enemy falling off his horse. On the bottom tier are the coopers, who were the first people to dance in the street when a deadly plague lifted. They do a little jig. It's cute.)

 

There was a big Christmas market set up in front of the Neues Rathaus. I liked this soap-on-a-rope.

I also liked the signage. When I am in charge of the world, all bathroom signs will be this cute.

The courtyard inside the Rathaus was full of interesting gargoyles, ironwork, windows, and more pretty Christmas greenery.

We headed to the famous Hofbrau House for lunch. Claire absolutely loved the oompa music.

It appeared to the casual observer that the band would play a song, and then stop and have a beer, and then play another song, and then have a bit of beer. And so on.

 

Then we walked back to our hotel to get our bags and catch the train to Nuremberg. There was more lovely Christmas greenery as we walked. So simple, really, but just my very favorite type of decoration.

Even the drug stores were decorated.

Claire really liked these mistletoe balls.

I liked it that all the shops were closed on Sunday. It was a peaceful, pretty stroll.

I love these arched windows with the greenery!

 

I have no idea how these trees were affixed to the corners of the buildings, but I saw several of these. Cool, huh?

And oh my goodness, I am in love with Smart Cars.

So, hey, that's a quick view of Munich! Then we grabbed the train to Nuremberg, which I'll talk about tomorrow and the next day. :)