DC Escape

For a couple years now...every February we have made it a tradition going to Washington, DC for a night. I think it has to do with winter weariness, lack of excitement in the winter months? The challenge is finding a nice place to stay for real cheap, in February, that ain't too hard. This year I went through Hotwire.com That's the place where you type in where you want to stay and how many stars you prefer and then it comes up with several choices. The catch is it doesn't tell you the name of the hotel, but rather the price and the general vicinity. Well with a few extra minutes of looking into the places in that area, you can guess pretty-good what your gonna get. Once you pay for the room up-front, they then send you an email with the name of the hotel where you will be staying. This years selection was The Madison Hotel ! Unfortunately, when we arrived we learned that the hotel employees were on a strike and were picketing in front of the hotel.
.....With MEGAPHONES.

From 7 am to 7 pm.

Note the large inflated rat in front.

So I don't have to get into it here, here's an article on the strike.
Nevertheless we seized the great opportunity to get even more deals!
The hotel gave Konrad this fancy drawing board!

We ate at our favorite french restaurant in Dupont Circle, Bistro Du Coin.
I think they're trying to read French?

We toured the National Building Museum, which I highly recommend. It's like a toddler's paradise. They have an adorable play room just for little ones. The architecture is beautiful; the columns are HUGE.

And then later we met some dear friends, Abhisek & Sujata in Old Town Alexandria for a late lunch. Next year, I would rather stay in Alexandria since there is so much there that we want to explore. Plus, Konrad loved watching the airplanes fly so close above us -as they were landing at National Airport nearby. We spent the late afternoon with our friends walking around town. It was nice to feed the ducks in the Potomac river with Konrad and Sujata.

What the Germans Do Better

This cracked me up. A friend sent this comic strip clipping to us... from the Washington Post.

Home Again Home Again

Ahh... I have finally found the time to write about our trip to Germany. Ha, a whopping 3 weeks later! Blame it on Motherhood :)

Konrad traveled like a pro, a little jet-setter. He didn't cry or whine until the last 20 minute leg of our drive home from the airport, we are so proud of him. I have lots to say... we did a ton of stuff over there, saw a lot of family, traveled to some beautiful places. I won't get half of it in here, but I will highlight a few things.

Our home was nestled in the small village of Schweighof, which is just a 5-minute walk from Badenweiler. Badenweiler is an old swanky spa town with Roman bath ruins. Here is a Google Map of where we were.

We had such a wonderful time with Brendan's family, especially over the Easter holiday. A truly beautiful time to be in Germany. Brendan, Konrad and I were able to surprise his Grandmother for her 90th birthday, which really surprised her, the look on her face was priceless. It was a special time and I got to meet a few more German relatives. It's great, all I do is smile and nod and nod and smile and they do the same to me. LOL

Here is Brendan and Konrad in Mullheim at the farmers market. The butcher handed Konrad his first (real) wurst, he devoured it in seconds. And we kept the fridge stocked with them for the remainder of the trip.

And here is Oma being blown away that we surprised her for her 90th birthday. Talk about a tear-jerker.

I took some photos of Brendan, Konrad and Oma. I felt like Miriam taking all these pictures! I'm really happy with some of them. 

And here is Brendan and his Mom in Schweighof, which is located in the Black Forest. SO Hansel and Gretel. And it was romantic, quaint, and beautiful.... Germans are known to vacation there for the fresh mountain air.

Brendan, Konrad and I did a few side trips here and there. The one main thing I wanted to do was see some World War I trenches (since WWI is my latest interest). So on a Sunday morning we drove to Hartzmannweilerkopf or as the French call it, Vieil Armand. It is located in the heart of the Alsace right smack-dab on top of the Vosges mountains. If you want, you can read about it here. It was a chilly-cloudy morning, the place looked desolate, no warm welcome center, the signage stunk (no big surprise there) and the building that was indeed there was shut down, it looked like it had been closed for decades, the monument (which we stumbled onto) was outright pathetic.

Then beyond the monument lay hundreds of graves of the soldiers that had fought for France.  A total of 30,000 men died here. Talk about depressing, it was as if France didn't really care about what those men did for their country. I was dumbfounded. And this place is one of the four national memorials to WWI in France. It was a big difference from what I am used to here in the states, I guess I was expecting a little more. Their 100th anniversary will be in 2015, perhaps they will give it a face lift by then.

I was determined to see a trench, so we ditched the stroller and jumped the tattered chain-linked fence. We tripped our way down the path past the graves, squeeze through another gate thing and there was a sign, a real decent sign indicating where the trenches were (finally!). It was after that that we discovered we had to hike up a mountain. Brendan put Konrad on his shoulders and up we went, huffing and puffing. The entire way I was absorbed in the huge divots, bowls of land scooped out from shells and bombs, it was as if the ground were a big sponge.

When we got to the top, there were the trenches. It was amazing. It was as if the war had ended a few months ago. These trenches are known as the best preserved ones because the soldiers lived there for so long with three years of no- real combat fighting, just hundreds of thousands of men living in the trenches. The barbed wire, live ammunition... bunkers, it's all still there. My pictures really don't do it any justice. The thing that amazed me was the big difference between the French and German trenches. The French trenches were shallow and barely waist-deep, whereas the German trenches were very tall, built of stone and had intricate secret passageways, tricky and confusing paths, deep chambers... by far better than the French trenches.

After an hour it got very cold and started to rain.
And then when we started our way back, barely seeing the monument we had to hike back to was so far away, then the rain began to pour.

And POUR...
I felt terrible for Konrad, that I had put him through this (Brendan too). They marched way ahead of me as I struggled to lug the stroller over the fence and then back to the car. When I finally got to the car, Brendan was standing in the rain with Konrad and said that our car had been broken into and everything stolen. Everything meaning, everything in my bag... which had EVERYTHING in it. I melted. I'm -still recovering.

Try to imagine the 2.5 hour drive back home. Broken glass everywhere, child in the back seat crying, pouring down cold rain and bits of glass flying into the car. Sobbing and hysterical wife in the backseat with the crying child. And stressed out Brendan who took his jacket off to keep us warm in the backseat, freezing his tail off. I swore out loud that I never liked France, never had a good memory and now this... this was it. We scoured for the police station only to discover that they were CLOSED.  Brendan later went back, when they were open for the two allotted hours of the day and got the police report.

The rental car was replaced, no charge. The remaining of the trip was spent recovering most the things that were stolen. Just hours after it happened, phone calls were made, things got fixed, our neighbor and hero Al back in Harpers Ferry helped us tremendously and ... I am really blessed with the best husband because he made immediate arrangements for us to get things fixed literally the next day.

So, back to the best parts of the trip:

Konrad had the best little garden to play in at our house. 

And here is Tante Anna in front of our place.

And Konrad getting lots of loving from his Opa Ernst.

Our favorite hang out in Badenweiler was a place called Cafe Red Coffee Box.

Here is Konrad having his first Kinder Cappuccino (frothed milk with chocolate on top) it's served free to children.

I will post more pictures soon!

Cheers! Prost! It's nice to be back home in Carrot Top, to be in our own bed and surroundings. We've been gardening like crazy since we got home, which has been so wonderful.

A Weekend in Staunton, Va

Last weekend for my birthday, Brendan, Konrad and I visited Staunton, Va. We stayed at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel which is located downtown and is absolutely beautiful. It was built in the 1920s and recently restored. Here is a link to the hotel. Our room was perfect, we had a nice view of the surrounding historic home roof-tops, the American Shakespeare Blackfriars Playhouse theatre, Mary Baldwin College, and Woodrow Willson's birthplace and presidential library. The hotel had an indoor pool that we basically had to ourselves every night, and a full really fancy breakfast every morning.
What was so convenient was that the hotel was downtown, so we walked everywhere. We were surprised how nice the town was, as all the buildings and sidewalks were very neatly restored and used. We had our choices of coffee shops, contemporary restaurants, galleries, boutiques, a tea house, organic groceries, and hair salons. Yes, there were at least 10 (or more) hair salons within walking distance (Brendan got his hair cut for $15). Everyday we ate lunch and dinner at a different restaurant. The only thing we missed out on was the Shakespeare Theatre, they have 1-2 shows per day every day and the theatre is one of two exact replicas in the world. We will have to go back when we have a babysitter available.

Here is a random picture of the train station. We were amazed how beautiful it was. It was one of the only places that hasn't been fixed up yet. It's still a working train station, used by Amtrak.

It was like something out of a movie - this train station. You have to see it in person as these pictures don't really capture it.

And here is Brendan and Konrad walking up to the School for the Deaf and Blind - to their tempting playground. We took lots of pictures of their campus as it was very nice.

Konrad had a good time at the playground. The weather was nice and the sun was warm.

Konrad placing rocks on the slide...

Brendan is working on a video from our trip, so I will be posting that next. I don't want to spoil it now with repeated pictures...

Staunton has 5 historic districts - all downtown and within walking distance of each other. The town is known for it's architecture, so you can imagine that most of the buildings are really something to see. There is a free trolly that you can hop on and ride throughout the town - this is how we saw the areas that we didn't walk to. The people were so nice everywhere we went. And on our way out of town we stopped off at the Mental Institution (formally), which was closed down in the 1970s (I believe) it has been bought and made into some really amazing contemporary apartments/condos. We got a tour for the heck of it and were blown away how amazing they were. I could go on and on, but you really have to go see it for yourself. If you are ever in the mood to get out of town for a long weekend, I highly recommend you go to Staunton. I know we will be going back!

The Kaiser Takes Manhattan

We spent last weekend with some friends in Summit, NJ and Brooklyn, NY. (Williamsburg) It was a whirlwind of an extended weekend. On Thursday night Brendan and I saw U2 in concert - which was out-of-this-world. On Friday and Saturday we were with Jenny, Dave and kids in Williamsburg, oh it was so much fun. We packed in as many sites in as we could. Brendan made a fabulous video, you can view it right here.

Our Vacation to Blowing Rock, NC

Brendan made a wonderful video of our vacation in Blowing Rock, North Carolina with my parents, you can view it here.

this Schnitzel is the Shizzle

We've been on vacation in Blowing Rock, NC this past week. It's been real fun but more on that later.

Today we found a German restaurant in Hickory, about a 40 minute drive from Blowing Rock ~ oh it was awesome. Unfortunately, it took us 2 hours to get there because the signage in Hickory is seriously backwards. So this German restaurant, which we saw on TV last night was voted as the best restaurant in N.C. by the food critic who was chompin' on some pork medallions and spaetzle. We were sold when we saw the Bienen Stich for dessert. He said not to let the location fool you, the restaurant sits smack in the middle of an abandoned strip mall outside of Hickory. The place was packed, a sea of cars in the middle of nowhere... it was amazing. The schnitzel was verrry good! If you are ever around Hickory, God forbid... the Old German Schnitzel Haus is certainly your saving grace.

A Bit of Everything

My new favorite blog is A Bit of Everything. -It is full of documented travels by my friend Katie. She and her man Cousin Perry are trampin' around in Singapore for a while. With a keen eye for life and equipped with a great camera, I'm surely getting some fabulous pictures and stories of their adventures. I am officially a new fan of her blog!

Friends from Canada Stop on By

Our friend Ted came down to visit us along with his friend Karin. They were on their way to the Inauguration, (the brave souls!). It was a very short and sweet visit. Here are some pictures from their stay. I've been meaning to get them up for some time!



Brendan gave Ted and Karin a night tour of Harpers Ferry and the next day we all drove down to Middleburg, Virginia. We had lunch at Market Salamander and saw them off from there.

Good Times with the Happonens

We traveled up to Ardmore, PA to spend some time with Tanu and Debbie. As always it was so relaxing and fun. They will be having a little one of their own in several months!! Konrad will have a friend and we're all excited about that!

The 'boys' in the kitchen...

Konrad listening to some Finnish baby babble.

I wish this picture was in focus, I like it... Debbie and Konrad bonding.

Needing a Vacation...

The Soenneckens need a warm vacation! So we decided to book some flights to Brunswick, Georgia (for a long weekend over Valentines Day). We'll stay with my parents so they can get some good Kaiser time in. Above are some of the pictures from January 2006 when we last visited. (Yikes, that's a long time!)

I can't wait. I want to...

1. Ride Bikes and picnic on St. Simons or Jekyll Island
2. Eat Boiled Peanuts
3. (Brendan) shuck some oysters with Dad
4. Eat Fried Grouper
5. Have early morning and late evening walks under palm trees and live oaks.
6. Walk the beach
7. Enjoy Grandma Anne's cookn'
8. Get sand in my shoes and in Konrad's diapers
9. Eat more Boiled Peanuts
10. Sit on the screened-in porch and look for big long-legged birds in the marsh

We Now Like Washington DC Again

I'm back from a little break. I hope you had a great holiday, well spent with family and friends. Our Christmas was nice and relaxing, we spent most of it at home since it was our first with Konrad. The day after Christmas we met my parents in Washington, DC. We stayed at the Lombardy Hotel, which was very nice. (more pictures from our adventures in Washington coming soon!)

A Nice Morning in Shepherdstown

It's our 'last day' as a family together before I go back to work on Monday. So we decided to take full advantage of our day and go to Shepherdstown real early. We had our cup of coffee at the Lost Dog (my old employer when I was in college). The Lost Dog is preety famous here in She-town and serves the best (seriously the best) coffees. Yes, I owe all my coffee snobbishness to Garth Jansen, pictured above. 

We later popped by Lullaby Lu to exchange a gift and was lured to have our picture taken with Santa Claus. Piccadilly Posh was there taking the pictures. So, a really cool family Christmas photo is coming soon!! ...you bet I will be making an appointment with them for more pictures!

Hey Ya'll, You Gotta See These Videos

Tramps Abroad created some wonderful videos of our adventures in Germany and France. Click here to see both videos,  Adventures of Special K (Konrad gets his first taste of Europe)  and Colemar avec les cousins (A visit to the Alsation town of Colmar). 

Bad Krozingen

We spent the day at the Bad Krozingen baths~ something I have been looking forward to for two years now! Laurie so graticiously watched Konrad while Brendan and I enjoyed ourselves for the afternoon.

Konrad Goes To Germany:A Visit To Auggen

It has been a relaxing first few days here. Our appartment is darling and welcoming, complete with orange pillows, Gutedel wine , grapes, and a pretty garden view. Konrad met his great Oma and Aunt Heike the following day. The weather has been nice, I love it here as always.

Off to Deutschland

We'll be in Germany for a couple weeks, I hope to be able to update the blog from there.

Time with Family

We made our rounds with family for the second leg of our trip. It was a treat to introduce Konrad to his great grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins. Here, Konrad visits his Great Grandfather Dean Douglas and Ruth. I couldn't get my other pictures up from this part of the trip, so I will have to add them later. There are some wonderful ones of Konrad with his Aunt Laura, I hope to get those up as soon as possible.