It's been a while since I've posted all of the blocks I've been making for the Common Threads virtual quilting bee that I'm a part of. Here's what I've made this year:
January: Oiyi
February: Jenny
March: Lynn
April: Jacquie
May: Wendy
June: Lisa
Round 2
August: Amber
September: Amy
October: Rossie
I've got November and I mailed out my fabrics on Monday. I can't wait to see what these ladies come up with for my block theme!
Thank goodness for Daylight Savings Time and remnants of jet lag. I was up at 7:30 on Sunday, and if you know me, I'm lucky if I get up before 11AM voluntarily (a morning person I am not)! I spent most of the day sewing blocks and quilt tops and it was so nice to work on projects that were moved to the back burner before our trip.
I finished the quilt top for Amanda's Nine Patch a Day Along. These blocks have been sitting in my craft closet since early in the summer and I was so relieved to finish up the top. I'm hoping to get to IKEA sometime this week to stock up on some twin flat sheets for quilt backings so that I can work on finishing the quilt this weekend.
Last night I cut out lots of triangles for a new quilt project. I think I'm going to make a large version of my trusty nested diamond baby quilt (here and here).
Because I have so many unfinished projects sitting in my crafting stash, I decided to join in on Jacquie's aptly timed "Joy in the New Year Challenge" to help spur me on to finishing up some things around here. I've got 14 projects to finish up this year and I think I can manage it all before the end of the year. Wish me luck!
Here are the two ornaments we bought in Bamberg.
They are so darling it hurts! I wish that we had enough money to bring all of the adorable ornaments in the store home with us.
I hope Jon and I look like this when we're 80! He can keep me warm with toasty fires and I can keep him warm with knitted goods. :)
Brussels was our final destination on the trip. We had been in and out of Brussels all week staying with our friend, Jodi, between city visits. It was so nice to have a home base to return to during the trip and to get to meet lots of Jodi's friends throughout the week. Jodi was a wonderful host and pointed us in the direction of many great spots to visit.
The view from her apartment's terrace.
On Sunday afternoon, we headed out to Place Flagey for pommes frites. These thick cut fries are double fried and served with your choice of condiments...Jon went with the traditional mayo and I ordered cocktail sauce which turned out to be tartar sauce. A really delicious treat served with fun mini forks.
Then, Jodi and her friend, Israel, got oysters and champagne from a street vendor. After Israel showed us how to properly eat an oyster, we all tried one.
I'm pretty sure that will be the last oyster that I eat.
Jon's reaction: "It tastes just like the ocean"
After the oysters and champagne, we walked around Brussels and saw some of the many art deco homes in the city.
Then we tried our first taste of Belgian beer at a café. Jon and I both really like the beer, probably because it was a deliciously sweet lambic brew. Jon's was made with cherries and mine was made with raspberries. It tasted more like sparkling juice than beer, which is probably why we enjoyed it so much.
Well, Jon enjoyed it a little bit too much...he was feeling the effects pretty quickly and provided quite the entertainment as we asked him questions and he had a 4-5 second delay in answering. (We can blame the lack of sleep on the train ride for that, too!)
On Sunday night, we visited the Atomium, the installation originally intended for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. One day, the Atomium will give the Eiffel Tower a run for it's money (or not).
Then we headed back to the Grand Place for more waffles...
One of many waffles consumed last week! We went with the traditional gaufres de liege, soft inside, crunchy outside with a thin sugary glaze. Yummy!
(And in case you're thinking, "what exactly did they eat on Sunday?"...I'll tell you: We each ate one marzipan croissant for breakfast in the Cologne train station, one large pommes frites, one glass of champagne, one oyster, one glass of lambic beer, and one waffle. Our stomachs were in uproar that day!)
And then, we saw Brussels' beloved Manneken Pis for the first time. After hearing all the hype about this statue, I though he would be a lot bigger than he was. Some of the molded candy and chocolate in the store windows were even bigger than the statue. I'm guessing he was less than two feet tall. Lots of different groups like to dress him up in costumes and there's even a museum filled with past outfits he's worn.
Actual size
Jon and I spent Monday, the last day of the trip, leisurely exploring the city on our own and stocking up on Belgian chocolate. We had seen most of the sites during our evening explorations of the city with Jodi, but we wanted to check out everything during the day.
Getting lost on the way to meeting Jodi for lunch resulted in discovering this lovely mural.
Royal Palace of Brussels
European Union
Artist Gu Wenda's lantern installation on the Mont des Artes
Église Notre Dame du Sablon
The Grand Place
Check out the rest of the Brussels photos on flickr, here.
Thanks for following along on all of these trip recap posts!
On Friday afternoon, we left Berlin on a train bound for Bamberg, Germany. The train ride through the German countryside was beautiful. Everything was lush and green and fall leaves were starting to change colors. Bamberg is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is one of a few places in Germany that wasn't bombed during the war. Our friend, Catherine, just moved to Germany this summer, so she was our faithful tour guide and navigator of German menus.
The city is absolutely darling and we pretty much spent our entire time walking five steps, exclaiming "oh, that is so cute," taking pictures, turning to our right and left and taking pictures and then walking a few more steps to do the same thing. I don't think I've ever seen a cuter town and one that cried out "Germany" so much!
We didn't take any tours or go to any museums and it was so nice to be able to just wander around the city and stop for pastry breaks or meal breaks whenever we felt like it. We had a great time walking through the Saturday market, window shopping and catching up with Catherine.
We found a really neat travel store and stocked up on cleverly designed German bags. Jon got a man-bag made completely out of recycled PET bottle material, I got a Reisenthel city shopper tote bag for more knitting projects, and Catherine bought this awesome Reisenthel carry cruiser for Saturday market days (see above). We stumbled upon a German department store selling lots of yarn, including Regia sock, but I was able to hold myself back (I'm not a sock knitter, after all).
We also visited a darling German Christmas store, Käthe Wohlfarht, and bought two cute little wooden Christmas ornaments (I'll have to take a picture and post them soon). The store was adorable and we were totally lured in by the cuckoo clock collection but managed to refrain ourselves.
Bamberg has lots of very crooked buildings that have settled over time.
One day, Jon and I will adopt a pug (or two!)
• • •
We left Bamberg on Saturday night on an overnight train bound for Cologne, Germany. Well, we thought it was an overnight train....
We ended up taking 3 separate trains to Cologne. First a one hour train to Wittenburg, then a one hour train to Frankfurt. We realized on our train to Wittenburg that we would be having a three hour layover at the Frankfurt station. Then we remembered that it was Daylight Savings Time in Europe (one week earlier than DST in the U.S.). So, we ended up spending that extra hour of Daylight Savings Time in a cold, outdoor Frankfurt train station huddled up next to each other on a bench watching Dexter on Jon's ipod. Our other entertainment of the evening was watching a drunk man sitting across from us blow his nose without the assistance of a tissue and spit repeatedly on the ground. I was sure that I was going to catch swine flu from him with all of the bodily fluids he was leaking.
Sitting in the cold, train station was pretty depressing as we watched all of the clocks stuck at 3AM for one hour. But we made it through and are able to laugh about it now. What are the odds of being stuck with a long layover in a train station in the middle of the night on Daylight Savings time, after all? After our four hours in the Frankfurt station, we had a three hour ride to Cologne with a private compartment and then another 2 hour train ride back to Brussels. Luckily, we were both able to sleep on both of those trains.
Even better was that we got to celebrate my favorite day of the year again in the States yesterday with an extra hour of sleep in the warmth and comfort of our own bed. It definitely made me much more appreciative of yesterday's time change!
The rest of the Bamberg photos are on flickr, here.
We flew to Berlin last Wednesay and stayed until Friday afternoon. We added Berlin to our trip because my friends, Courtney and Jamie (long lost high school friends reunited on facebook), raved about how wonderful the city was. They were definitely correct! We loved it!
The city oozes with history and I love the rawness of it. There are tons of beautiful old buildings right next to modern buildings that have been rebuilt since the war. There's a lot more open spaces and trees and grass than in Amsterdam, Paris or Brussels. And the people seemed more down to earth and relaxed (from what we could tell from our lack of German skills). The city is a lot more spread out, so it was nice to be able to walk down tree lined streets and peer into windows on our way to the next destination. Berlin really felt like a city that I could move to and be comfortable in.
After being completely tired out by Paris, we took time to slow down and enjoy ourselves in the city. We didn't put ourselves on a crazy tourist schedule, but we did get to see quite a few recommended spots.
Checkpoint Charlie (and museum):
This was definitely my favorite museum of the trip. The museum is kind of old and run down and very raw. I'm sure that archivists must be squirming at the site of some of the precious relics in the museum being open and exposed to elements, but I suppose it added to the charm of the museum. I knew about the Berlin wall, but I was a little too young to understand exactly what was going on and why the wall was constructed. This museum explained everything in detail and made the situation come to life. We saw car trunks and radiators that were used to smuggle people across the wall, homemade respiratory machines to help survive an underground tunnel under the wall and lots of pictures and accounts of people who made it across the border. At one point in the museum, we were standing at a window that people used in the actual museum as a lookout point to smuggle people across the border. The history and experiences of the people was just so real to me at that moment!
This is the newly constructed German parliament building. The original base of the Reichstag still remains, but the inside was completely remodeled and a transparent dome was added to the top. The designers of the building reflected the new dedication to openness the government took after WWII with the building's architecture. The building is open to the public and visitors can peer down into the main meeting room and watch law making in progress. The dome on top of the building has spiraling walkways and an open air top that collects rain water and precipitation to help heat and cool the building. The mirrors in the dome also reflect sunlight to help direct natural light into the meeting space and reduce electricity need.
us sporting my handknit hats (habitat for me, koolhaas for Jon).
There was an art installation right behind the gate with a stack of nine boats that were used to rescue prisoners from Turkey and bring them to safety. I loved seeing art installations like this all over the city that were so symbolic of freedom from persecution.
This was the only art museum we visited in Berlin. The Pergamon is filled with antiquities from ancient Greek, Babylonian and Arabic cultures. The museum has a great 30 minute audio introduction to the museum that we listened to and then we wandered around looking at other things that piqued our interest. I really enjoyed looking at some of the arabic rugs and textiles in the museum.
Potsdamer Platz is supposed to be the central area of the city and is
filled with lots of ads, tall buildings and shops. The most striking
building in the center is the Sony building, which looks like Mt Fuji
from outside and a space ship from inside. And, in the interest of full
disclosure and being real (thanks Amy), it is also the place where we
succumbed to American food and had ourselves a snack of 6 donuts
and 2 large hot chocolates from Dunkin Donuts (who knew it was so
popular in Germany?). Yes, we were on a total sugar rush after that!
But, how could we just buy four when a half dozen was cheaper?
We visited the Jewish museum on Thursday afternoon after a lovely lunch in the museum café. The museum is designed by Daniel Libeskind and is full of such striking symbolism history through its windows, gardens, art installations and enclosed spaces. The museum had a lot of interactive exhibits that would be great for young kids, but we mostly enjoyed the design of the building and the photos and descriptions in the collection.
We stayed at Pension Peters, which was recommended in the Rick Steves book. We could not recommend this hotel enough. It was the most inexpensive hotel of the trip, included breakfast, had soaring ceilings and a beautiful courtyard view and was incredibly clean. We were so happy to have found this place.
On a side note, Jon and I are totally sold on the separate bed coverings thing. This solved the cover stealing debate that has been going on since we were married. We each had our own blanket and were warm throughout the night. I think I will be turning the Crate and Barrel quilt that I wanted to make into two twin sized quilts with a duvet pocket so that we can use separate quilts in the summer and separate comforters in the winter.
Mr Hai & Friends Vietnamese food:
We were so happy to have found this restaurant. It's located just around the corner from Pension Peters and has two pages of the menu devoted to vegetarian dishes. Because we couldn't understand German, we just pointed to a dish and were surprised with what we got. We ate there twice because we enjoyed the food (and ease of ordering) so much.
Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche:
Our last stop in Berlin was at this old church that was bombed out in WWII. Instead of tearing the church down, it was left up as a monument and the church was rebuilt around it. The old and new remain to remind visitors of the past and encourage them in the future.
• • •
On Friday morning, we journeyed on the U-Bahn to the home of my ancestors, or at least what I pretended to be was the home of my ancestors. My maiden name was plastered everywhere and I had fun getting pictures to bring back to my family. If the museum had museum t-shirts, I totally would have brought them all home to my family for their annual Christmas photo. Unfortunately, they did not, so they'll have to enjoy the photos of the local farm, apothecary, café, bookstore, map and train station!
And, you can see the rest of the Berlin pictures on flickr: here
We headed to Paris on Monday and Tuesday last week, after making a quick overnight trip to stay at our friend Jodi's apartment in Brussels (more on Brussels later).
Paris was incredibly beautiful and so overwhelming. The city is oozing with culture, charm and character everywhere you turn. We did our best to see the big sites and totally tired ourselves out after two days of walking everywhere. Next time we go, we'll vacation in the European way and savor our time in the city!
After checking in at our hotel, we walked over to the Eiffel Tower to begin our tour of the city and then took a city bus to Notre Dame to start our sightseeing.
Lighting a candle in remembrance of my grandma who passed away earlier this year. I know that she would have loved to attend Mass here.
We spent most of the morning doing Rick Steves historic Paris walking tour. We were both a little confused about the directions, but were able to see most of the stops that he highlighted. We took a little break in the afternoon to have our first Parisian croissant and pan du chocolat at a boulangerie in the Latin Quarter. Both were excellent and now I know why everyone raves about them! Seriously, they were so delicious!
After finishing the walking tour, we headed to the Louvre. We had debated whether or not to go to this museum as it's pretty intimidating. In the end, we made a quick trip to see the Mona Lisa and were in and out of the museum in about 45 minutes. We had purchased the Paris Museum Pass beforehand, so we were able to see lots of museums at one set price, with no waiting in lines.
The Louvre
The Mona Lisa is that tiny painting on the wall on the right. Can you see it?
Tourists taking pictures with the Mona Lisa
Jon and I doing the same.
After the Louvre, we got our first baguette and headed off to the Centre Pompideau. This modern and contemporary art museum is considered an eyesore by many Parisians (it definitely doesn't blend in with the city), but Jon and I liked it because it was a great visual break from the rest of the city. There are great views of the city from the outside and lots of fun art inside. Our friend, Jodi, begged us to go and visit and we were so glad that we did!
On Monday night, we took the Metro to the Trocadero and saw the Eiffel Tower lit up at night and the stunning light show that happens every hour. It was gorgeous.
After viewing the light show, we headed back to our hotel and miraculously ran into my friend, Erica, in the Paris metro. She and her friend had stopped in Paris on their way back to the States after a Mediterranean cruise. I still can't believe that we bumped into each other like that! What are the odds?
On Tuesday morning, we trekked up to Sacre Coeur to see the beautiful cathedral and climb the tower. The church was gorgeous and the views from the tower were amazing. Jon and I are both slightly claustrophobic and slightly afraid of heights, but the cramped and narrow spiraling stairs (300 steps) up to the top of the tower was totally worth it for the view.
Nothing beats an ivy covered building in the fall!
After lunch, we headed back into the city and saw the Rodin Museum:
The Thinker
In front of "The Gates of Hell"
Les Invalides and Napoleon's tomb:
We got in trouble with the Police for taking this photo. Apparently tripod tourist pictures are not allowed!
Napolean's Tomb...so huge for such a tiny guy!
We finished up our museum hopping by stopping at the Musee d'Orsay.
This and the Centre Pompideau were our favorite museums in Paris. The Musee d'Orsay is a train station converted into a museum and is such a great space. The museum houses lots of famous impressionist works and it was fun to finally get to see them in person.
We ended our time in Paris with a trip to Laduree for French macaroons and a dinner at a café on the Champs Elysees. I am exhausted just writing this post...I can't believe we actually saw all of this in less than 48 hours! See the rest of the photos on flickr: here.
We’re back! We had a fabulous time visiting friends in Europe and I’ve got lots of photos to share. I've got lots of blogs and emails to catch up with, so I'm going to break the trip down into smaller posts that feature each city that we visited.
We flew into Amsterdam last Saturday and spent two days exploring the city. We saw the big sites (the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House), rented bikes for an afternoon, took a canal boat tour of the city and pinched ourselves because we still couldn’t believe that we had finally made it to Europe.
The museums were fabulous and the Rijksmuseum ended up being our favorite museum of the trip. The audio guide was excellent, even though we were fighting back tiredness as we listened to the soothing voice of the narrator. It was so surreal to go through the Anne Frank House. I loved reading her diary when I was younger and it was so moving to see the place where she spent all of her time.
Anne Frank House
I went to a Dutch college, so it was a lot of fun to be in Amsterdam and be familiar with lots of Dutch vocabulary and last names that I was first introduced to in school. Plus, the Dutch are some of the tallest people in the world, so I didn't have to duck to take a shower at the hotel (can't say the same about our trip to Japan).
We rented bikes on Sunday morning and rode in the direction of the Van Gogh museum. Jon and I ended up getting separated two different sides of the Amsterdam Marathon route (crazy and frustrating, yes!). Fortunately we were able to find a spot up the street with less traffic and police officers and sneak across to the other side to meet up with each other again.
We stayed at a cute little hotel on the Herengracht Canal that we’d definitely recommend, chic&basic Amsterdam. It’s a Spanish chain hotel that was recommended in the Rick Steves Best of Europe guide (our most used book of the week). The staff at the hotel was so friendly and helpful and welcoming and we had a great canal view from our room.
During our first day in Amsterdam we starting looking for a place to eat lunch a little too late and we were both a bit cranky and really hungry. After we almost settled on lunch at an average café, we turned around and saw "Maoz Vegetarian" calling our name. This is a chain falafel place that has a few locations in the US and had a great selection of Middle eastern salads and toppings to add to the falafel sandwich. I wish they would open up a place in Detroit, although we are very spoiled with Middle eastern food here.
Many thanks to Rick Steves for also recommending one of our favorite food stops of the trip, the café at La Place (trip advisor review here). It was basically a clean, fresh gourmet food court with tons of options...fresh fruit, stir fry, breads and pastries, salads and side dishes. Jon and I both had an Asian stir fry with tons of random vegetables. Vegetables were rare to come by in the bread and carb filled culinary world of Europe, so we stocked up here!
Here's the rest of my Amsterdam pictures: Amsterdam flickr set.
And here's a design*sponge Amsterdam city guide. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to visit some of the places that we had wanted to from this list (the common theme throughout most of our trip!).