Switzerland-- land of cheese and chocolate

The bear statue over the river Aare. We took this while walking over the Kirchenfeldbruke, which is a monumental iron bridge 40 meters above the river and it was constructed between 1881-1883. On the other side is where all the museums of Bern are located. We attended Kunsthalle Bern, which is a modern art museum. Very modern art. Some people like it..Alex and some don't..me.

Our 60 franc lunch. So Alex and I decided to have a traditional swiss lunch...Fondue. Being innocent newbies, we asked the waiter at the Restaurant Anker Bern if one fondue pot would feed both of us and he said no, just enough for one. It was enough for four when it was all said and done. But it was wonderful...there was so much white wine, the fumes were just wafting out of the pot. Delicious.

Bärengraben . The bear is the symbol of Bern and having bears in the

den has been a tradition since 1513.

Kindlifresserbrunnen--the fountain of the child-eater, which represents a ogre eating a naked child. One of the most famous fountains by Hans Gieng. Scary.

I wanted to see this fountain because the girls at work say it should be on

a EDIS shirt that states: "If we don't fix em by three, we'll eat them".

I work with some sick puppies.

Anyway, at lunch I was looking up where this fountain was located, trying to plot it out on the map when I look up and we had been sitting next to it for an hour.

Vikki and Alex...July 19, 2008

We took this picture ourselves on the park bench outside the Bern Bear Pit.

Aare River in Bern...the water runs off the Alps. The color was actually
the color in the picture. It rarely gets above 18C (64F).

A view of St. Vincent's Cathedral. The spire was being renovated and this cathedral is beautiful example of gothic style.

So Alex and I had a wonderful time on the USO tour to Bern. Took about 4 hours to get there. The day was magnificant. Perfect weather and the sky was so blue. The was barely a cloud in the sky. If you look at the picture of the orge fountain, the sky was that blue most of the day. Next Luxembourg...

We Have Wheels!!!!!!

We finally have wheels...Because we are here under the SOFA agreement we could not drive in Germany until we had a USAEUR license. This required us to to go to a 3 hour orientation where we watched a really bad video reminincent of the early 80's videos about drinking, driving and STD's. Then come back another day after studing a 82 page driver's manual (I am not kidding) about the dos and don'ts of driving in Germany. The test is 100 questions long--you can only miss 15 to pass. I missed....15. Just by the skin of my nose the instructor said. Alex passed too and we proceeded to the nearest rental agency to procure a set of wheels--a VW Golf. My little CR-V will be here in a few weeks and it is considered a giant vehicle here. There are around 138 different road signs in Germany...if not more. The priority road is the thing that will get you and the roundabouts...must like the circle thing because there are a million of those here.

My Kingdom for a Air Conditioner

They were right when they said that German's don't believe in air conditioning...what I wouldn't give for the icy cool blast of a cranked up air conditioner, even the hospital is without air...unless you are a patient. Then by all means, air is pumped into your room. You have to be ill to be cool. Of course, this would have to be an usually warm summer-in the mid 80's someday and me without short sleeve shirts.

They do have in every resturant, store, movie theatre and cart...my favorite, Mineral Water mit gas...or as we call it sparkling water. Yep...gassy water for me.

Went Over The Big Blue Ocean

Well, we did it. After a quick bout with Tourette's Syndrome and cool down time where I informed my husband I absoulutely was not going to Germany and he could go without me...here I am. To describe the above pictures (I apologize that pic #1 is sideways, the picture is correct in the album)

1. This is the street outside our hotel room in Landstuhl, Germany.

2. This is the view outside our window...Nanstein Castle, google it.

3. This is our hotel room. It is a mini apartment.

So far, all toliets I have encountered have been normal-none of those crazy poop inspection shelves so many have talked about...but I have really only seen the bases. And have I seen bases. There are a total of 9 military bases in this area. And in order to get your processing done-and boy are you processed, you have to go to several different ones in order to get your ids. I have a id to allow me on bases and id to allow me into the hospital; ids for Alex because I sponsor him...we have been joking today that he has lost his identity because everything has to be processed under my name. It is a bit overwhelming, especially since I have never been around military. Guns and acronoyms about sums it up. There is acronoym for everything you can think of. I think there are acronoyms for acronoyms. And they expect you to understand this gibberish.

Jet Lag was hell-if I could have taken a picture of us at 6:00 yesterday evening it would have been a sight. But I was too damn tired. We literally fell into the bed and went straight to sleep. They had us running yesterday the minute we got off the plane and we did not stop until 6:00. Crazy.

Well, that is it for now-love, kisses and Auf Wiedersehen.

Finally--we are off!

Hi Everyone--
One week exactly before we leave for Germany. Thank you to all of you for coming to the BBQ and seeing us off in style. This is our blog page where we will be posting our German Adventures...or in our case Misadventures as we travel around Europe for the next two years. Sounds heavenly, too bad we also have to work.

During this week we will be doing one thing and one thing only---packing. You would think with all the crap I have sold, given away or carted off to Good Will, there wouldn't be a blasted thing left in this house, but...I beleive possessions are gremlins, add a little water and away they multiply.

We leave out of Lexington on Sunday and head to Chicago. From there we lift off on the Lufthansa to Frankfurt, Germany. 2 Xanax and 8 hours later we will officially be on German soil.

So, keep watching and we will be updating more soon. Love and Kisses Vikki and Alex

Wow first post

Just getting everything set up in here.