The Search for Soccer Cleats: Amberg

The search for soccer cleats led us to Amberg yesterday, where we heard the shopping is good.  The shopping was good and the city was beautiful, of course.  We went with the Burdens again, who needed an auto parts store.  It was closed, though. We should have known, it's the weekend in Germany, lots of places are closed!

This was a building that I thought was cool. Andy and Evan liked it because there were cool lion statues in front of it.

Evan wanted to get his picture with the soccer lion.  Afterwards we walked everywhere looking for cleats.  We went into at least 5 shoe stores.

Although we had fun in all of these cool stores, especially this one with the motorcycle, we couldn't find cleats small enough for Evan.  We did, however, find a cute pair of shoes for him and a cute pair of shoes for me (obviously, I'm not going into 5 shoe stores without buying at least one pair!).

I always feel like we see the most interesting things when we explore new cities.  During this trip we saw this bike vendor.

I don't know how he rides that, I definitely don't have the balance for that!  This was a cart with food in it, mostly breads and pretzels, attached to the bike.  In Germany, they love their breads and pretzels! Andy does, too.  He said he is starting a new "all carb" diet: pretzels and beer only!

We also saw this guy who was putting on a little puppet show. We got a good laugh because the puppet was "singing" in English and Spanish.  This scary looking puppet also jumped up in Evan's lap.  Evan didn't move at all and just stared at it while everyone was cheering and clapping to the music.  Afterward though, Evan said, "I didn't like when that thing got on me."  Our friend's son, Grayson, was scared of the puppet, too.  He didn't want it getting close to him while he was trying to put a Euro in the guy's hat.

After the puppet show, we stopped for lunch.  Andy finally got to try a Doner.  It is like a wrap or a sandwich with some kind of meat and weird sauce.  That isn't a good description, but that's literally the best I can come up with, even after tasting it.  I didn't love it, but Andy, Micah, and Shannon enjoyed theirs! After lunch, we stopped to take a few pictures.

There is always great scenery for pictures.

This is a picture of St. Martin's Basilica, which I thought was so pretty.

This is one of the doors to St. Martin's Basilica.  The doors are so ornate, and I have said more than once now that I could probably create an entire door-themed blog.

In fact, here is another random door that I had to take a picture of.  Even from the picture, you can tell how beautifully carved it is.

Before we left Amberg, we stopped to take a few pictures in front of a fountain.  The boys were finishing up their delicious, melting gelato.

Evan and I always stop to strike a pose.  Well, I strike a pose.  Evan looks away as if to let everyone know he is done with my paparazzi-like antics.

We enjoyed our trip to Amberg and we will most definitely be going back to do some more shopping.  I found a home decorations store that I would like to donate a small fortune to.  After Amberg, we went home and had dinner with our neighbors and played a hilarious game of Apples to Apples.  I also got quite the intersting videos of all of them dancing trying to get the little ones to dance.  Although I would like to share those videos on this blog, I would like to remain friends with my new neighbors.  Perhaps another time!

The Car Arrived: Trip to Weiden

Our car got here today and I was so excited! I literally hugged my cute little Mazda.  Believe it or not, there is not a lot going on in Vilseck (thank goodness for fun neighbors!), so we decided to take a short road trip and go exploring.

We ended up in Weiden, which is about 40 minutes from where we live. 

We stopped at some store that I can't remember the name of, because I am in search of something similar to a Target!  Well, it was no Target, but more of a Lowe's with a furniture store on the top floor.  Not too much fun stuff to look at there, considering we are not allowed to remodel our government housing. So we left Furniture Lowe's in search of something else fun. 

We found this cute little strip of shops.  Germany is cool because it seems there are all these tucked away little places, with modern stores, but in old and beautiful buildings. 

As we were walking, we saw this little restaurant where people were enjoying huge sundaes of Italian gelato (they love gelato here, which is great because so do we!).  Almost every restaurant has outdoor tables so that you can enjoy the beautiful summer, it doesn't last long here apparently.  The funniest part of our adventure in Weiden was when we were going into some of the shops.

Andy looked at one of the stores and said, "What's EuroShop?"  I looked and said, "Oh my goodness, it's like the dollar store! Everything is 1 Euro!"  We thought this was hilarious because just a few days ago, we were joking about how it's too bad they don't have a dollar store here.  What a find!  We picked up some floats for Evan for the schwimmbad (the pool).  After the Euroshop, we enjoyed an authentic, outdoor meal at the local McDonald's, and of course some gelato for dessert.  It was a fun day and so nice to have our car and leave the post! More adventures to come!

Our First Trip: Nurnberg

We took our first trip to Nurnberg, Germany with our new friends Shannon, Micah, and their son, Grayson.  We all took the train, which was a cheap 14 Euros round trip (just over $18 American...the exchange rate is not in our favor).  The train ride was great because we could all talk and enjoy the beautiful, rustic scenery without having to navigate.

We arrived at der Bahnhof (the train station) in Nurnberg and we were immediately impressed with the German architecture.  The buildings are so old and beautiful and in such great shape.  Everything is well taken care of here.  The Germans are proud of their buildings and their country, and it shows.  It is so clean!

The churches are beautiful!






We went to the top of Nurnberg Castle and got to overlook the city. The view was amazing, like nothing we have ever seen before. 

 This was the day we really got excited about exploring Germany and alll of Europe.  This is just one city and look how beautiful it is.



The Beginning

We made it to Europe! This is the start of our new adventure and we feel very fortunate to have this experience.  We have been in Vilseck, Germany for a month now.  We have a house on the base and our neighbors are awesome!  We have already met so many amazing people...on the flight to Ramstein, on the bus from Kaiserslautern, and of course in Vilseck and Grafenwoerh.  We have always been lucky with great people coming into our lives.  Or perhaps we would call it karma.  We pick up our car tomorrow, so the exploration begins!