Achtung Baby: May 2007

bergkirchweih

thought we'd enjoy the long weekend with a little volkfest, so off to erlangen we went. the size of food and drinks at a bavarian volksfest meant that there was a lot of sharing going on, along with little dancing.

good to the last drop, hey amanda?

lauren tells us stories about her crush...

die alte generation visits

first it was rob and the lovely anika, next the fiery, spezi keller loving sarah. die alte generation = die beste. also in the post - evidence of germany's need for air conditioning.

okay, so i turn on my camera inside live club, and this is what happens. lens gets all foggy so that it looks like we're in a hazy dry ice cloud or something. no, no dry ice, it's just that disgustingly hot. the only other time my camera lens got all foggy like that was when i was in the RAIN FOREST in brazil!

adam bustin' some of his moves

christoph's *gasp* unglaublich! face?

jenny and erinn do the pointer finger dance

deer in headlights meets sweaty, really into the music guy

some cute guys insisted i take their picture...

treat your ears to a little of this:

click here for her website and here for her myspace page
my picks: 1234, the park, so sorry

family history lesson

my dad's half-brother, walter, immigrated to germany from russia about ten years ago. it was around the same time that, much to our surprise, we first learned my dad had a half-brother.
i met walter and his wife, valentina, the first time i was in germany nine years ago. at that time, they could only speak russian. seeing as my russian consists of the phrase "i don't understand russian" and a four line russian-german poem about butter churns that my opa taught me, communication was a bit of a problem. but nine years on, we now have one language in common.
mom and i had sunday lunch with the fam and learned a little more about the lives of these relatives who, in all honesty, are more like strangers. having this little branch of the family tree half way around the world is kind of strange considering the rest of my dad's enormous family all live within five minutes of my parent's house (this is no small feat considering the family is so extended that we rent out community halls for family gatherings. seriously, it's ridiculous). being slightly obsessed with history and determined to learn more about my family history, i loved getting to know walter and his family and hearing a bit of their story. here are some pics of our little history lesson.

opa walter and daniel put names to the faces

valentina and julia

adorable daniel

mama julia and violetta

father and son
er, yeah, i have no idea how to spell dad's very russian sounding name...

mama thiessen in bamberg

unfortunately i had to work almost the entire time mama thiessen was in bamberg, but here are some pics of our sunday morning walk up to michaelsberg.

every time i think about michaelsberg, i think about seeing this inside the church and i don't get it. what's with all the skeletons and skulls and crossbones?

santorini

holiday!!!

yup, greece. mom and i went to greece! saw lots of old stuff and got really dusty feet, a bee sting and a sunburn in athens, then jetted off to santorini island to work on our tans a little more. here are some pictures of athens: