Update

Well I am happy to report that RT was able to save the BMW. He is much more resourceful sometimes than I tend to give him credit for! RT, Josh and Brent were able to drain the tank and make the necessary repairs to the car to get it to run again. Brent did have to siphon about 30 liters of gas and at one point he and RT started a small fire, but all in all the car is running :) I swear sometimes I just have to shake my head at the situations that RT gets himself into.

A little homesick

Well this story is kind of funny, or at least I think it will be in a few years. Lately RT and I have been talking about our move back to the states in December. There is a really long list of things that we are looking forward to. Don't get me wrong, there are many things about Italy that I really love, but I miss being in GA. I miss Chick-fil-a, Cracker Barrel, Target, Gas stations that stay open past 5 pm and on Sunday, buying milk in a gallon jug, being able to put $20.00 worth of gas in my car without having to use Nato coupons, Fast food, being able to understand signs because they are written in English.... I mean honestly I could go on for forever. You get the point. The closer we get to PCSing out of here, the more excited we become. It also helps a great deal that Adam and Holly are moving to Benning with us which I am super stoked about. Lately, I have been feeling a little homesick. Some things in Italy are just harder than in the states. Take what happened today for instance. RT went to the Venice airport to pick up our friend Josh who had just flown in from Colorado. A few hours after he left, I get a phone call from him. As you all know, RT never really panics about things and he is usually pretty nonchalant about things. Well this was no different. He very calmly asked me what I was doing and if I could perhaps help him. I was like "sure, what is up?" He explained that he was stranded on the side of the Autostrada (the highway here in Italy where all the Italians really show how crazy they can drive) and that he needed a tow truck to come get his BMW. Hmmmm I thought. Apparently RT and Josh had stopped to get gas on the way home from the airport and RT had gone to use the restroom. Josh offered to pump the gas and accidentally pumped diesel into an "unleaded only" vehicle. They did not know it until they had traveled about a kilometer and it just shut off on them. In Josh's defense, the pumps over here can be very confusing sometimes because they call diesel "gasoline". So, I had to call the MP station and get an interpreter on the line to call a tow truck. This took forever and I got hung up on a few times and I was fuming by the time the whole thing was set up. So, I tell RT to hang out and they are on the way. We were not sure if the tow truck would have room for RT and Josh so off I went in the little Volvo to pick them up. Keep in mind I had NO idea where I was going. I get about 10 minutes from where they are and RT calls to tell me they have left with the tow truck guy who speaks no English and clearly has a grudge against Americans that run out of gas on the Autostrada. I get off the highway and proceed to get ridiculously lost! This is a common thing for me here in Italy. I am always getting lost on the crazy roads here. Luckily I did not have Emily with me this time. It took me about an hour to find my way back although I am pretty sure that I was only 20 minutes from my house when I left. OK, so now back to the whole point of this blog. As I was driving around aimlessly, I saw a Blockbuster! Now I am used to seeing McDonalds here and an occasional Shell Gas station but never something so American as a Blockbuster! I was excited about it. This made me realize how much I miss the simple things from being back home. Something so small as a Blockbuster made me feel so homesick. The closer we get to December, the more excited I get about it! I will let you guys know what happens to the BMW whenever we figure it out tomorrow and RT gets an estimate of what the damages are. Like I said in the beginning, I hope the story of this car will be funny in the next few years because as much as RT already thinks it is, I wasn't laughing about it this afternoon!

Our trip to Germany... Part 3!

The last day that we were in Germany, we scheduled a trip to Munich City. We were both really excited about this trip. We took the tour bus on the hour and half trip north. Once we got there, we had a tour guide that took us around parts of the city and showed us the main attractions. One of the things we were most excited about was going to The Hofbrau House. It is a famous brewery and is known for it's delicious beer. We also found a Hard Rock Cafe there and made a quick stop to get some t-shirts. Emily got her first Hard Rock T-shirt from Munich which I thought was really neat. We found a really cool store in the center of town that had some of the BEST chocolate that we have ever eaten. We also got to go into a museum that displayed the royal family jewels. This was amazing! We have some really cool pictures of the family's personal belongings. We started our tour at the Opera house. We then went down a street where the guide showed us the area that Hitler came in and took over first when he decided that we wanted to take over Munich City. The history of Germany is mind blowing. Listening to the guide talk about the horrors that the citizens faced during this time was gut wrenching.
This is RT and I in the square outside of The Opera House.


There are four golden lion heads on the road leaving the Opera House Square and the myth is that if you rub the inside of the lions nose, then you will have good luck. This is the two of us rubbing the lion and hoping the myth is true!

Here are a few random pictures of the city as we walked around.

There is a huge bell tower in one of the squares that has an elaborate scene that moves when the clock strikes a certain hour. We caught it at about 11 in the morning. There are characters that joust and then jesters that dance in circles. It was really cool to watch. It lasts for about 15 minutes. Here are a few pictures from that.





This is a statue of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet.

These are pictures of a real Beer Garden! It was so interesting to see so many people in one area just drinking beer. It is like water to them here. There was a huge market that surrounded the beer garden and you could find so many different things in this market. We stopped and RT bought Emily some baby bananas. We also went to a honey house and bought some candy from it.

These are all from the Haufbrau house where we had lunch and a beer. There is a live band that plays while you eat and they wear the traditional clothing. There was a woman that would walk around and sell HUGE pretzels and cookies. RT bought a pretzel from her which we got a picture of. When we first arrived there, Emily was sleeping. She quickly woke up when we sat down and the band started playing for us outside. The food was good and the beer was much stronger than what we are used to but it tasted really good.

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This is the sign outside of the Hard Rock Cafe.

The last stop we made before we headed back to the resort was to look at some of the Royal Family jewels. There were several but I will only post a few pictures. They were so beautiful to see in person.

Our trip to Germany... Part 2!

So, after a good night's rest, we woke up to start our trip to the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is one of several castles that were built for King Ludwig of Germany. He was somewhat of a strange man and a loner. He was never married and never had any children so he just kind of kept to himself. The castle is extremely elaborate but was never finished. We took a tour of the parts of the castle that were actually complete. On our way to the castle, our tour bus made a few stops. The first stop was at a wood shop. This area of Bavaria is famous for their wood products and was at one time the main source of income for the locals. The shop was really cool and we bought a few souvenirs from here.

This is Emily waiting for the tour bus to pick us up at the hotel.

These are me and Em outside the wood shop and then her and RT.

Our next stop was this little church in the middle of nowhere. It was so gorgeous. The inside was unlike any church that I have seen. It was very detailed and beautiful.

This particular image really stuck out to me. I just stood there staring at it for quite some time. I know that this sounds weird but I couldn't help but to wonder if this is what my Mom first saw when she got to Heaven...

After this brief stop we were off to the castle. The drive there was so pretty. There were actually two castles in the same area. The older one was one that King Ludwig's family owned and where he spent time growing up. We didn't visit this one but we got some pictures of it. We took a bus to the top of the mountain and then went to a bridge that gave an awesome view of the castle. I was scared to death to go on the bridge because it was REALLY high up and over water. The biggest thing that scared me was that there was a ridiculous amount of people on the bridge at the same time. RT took Emily out there and got a picture I will show you. I do not have words to describe what this castle was like in person. I have read about castles and places like this in books and you see them in movies, but this was real. A real king lived in this thing. Oh yeah, a little side note, This is the actual castle that Walt Disney used as the model for the Disney Castle.

This is the older castle that the King's family owned and where he spent time as a child.
This is the Neuschwanstein Castle from the bridge.
The bus only brought us to the bridge and then we had to walk up the rest of the way to the castle. This is us on the hike up.
This is the view as we were hiking up... beautiful.
Unfortunately we were not able to take pictures inside the castle because the furniture and paintings were the originals and were hundreds of years old. RT tried to sneak some pictures inside but they were all blurry because he couldn't use the flash and give himself away! We decided to walk the entire way down the mountain on the way back. Here are some pictures from that. The first one is RT eating a quak ball. As we came down the trail there were several vendors selling different things. We stopped at a small vendor selling these pastries and decided to try them. They were SO good! They are little pastry balls with some kind of yogurt thing in the middle and rolled in powdered sugar. YUM!

Emily has a new obsession with our camera and is always asking to take pictures. This is one she took of me and RT. Not too bad for a 2 year old!

Once we got to the bottom of the trail, we were pretty hungry. We grabbed lunch at a cute little restaurant and got to try the authentic German food and real German beer! It was really good. This is Emily sitting on the stairs of the restaurant.

This is was such an awesome trip for all three of us. We had such a good time. After we returned to the hotel, Emily and I were exhausted as you can see. RT went to play the slot machines in the casino area of the hotel. Then we all went to for a swim in the indoor pool. I will have the next "installment" of our trip coming soon!!