Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow will be our first Thanksgiving overseas, but not our first one away from home.  We spent Thanksgiving 2008 in Ft. Lauderdale at a Cracker Barrel, just the 2 of us!  This year, however, I think we'll be foregoing the turkey and dressing and instead pulling an "A Christmas Story" and dining in a Chinese restaurant :-) Wouldn't the pilgrims be proud?  We so wish we could be home with all of our loved ones, but know that we are incredibly thankful for each and every one of you!!!

I'm also thankful for being a Hausfrau and not having to go to work because that gives me time to update our blog with some random pictures we've recently taken.

The Lahn River in Wetzlar, which Serge's dad recreated for us in a beautiful painting  

Rick Reinert is an awesome artist - check him out!

Serge on his first day of work - It's only a 15 minute walk to the office. 

P.S. He changes his shoes when he gets in!

And this was obviously taken before the time change; it doesn't look like this at 7:30 anymore!

Outside of my language school in Gießen

On a field trip to the Mathematikum Museum in Gießen - with pi

 Uh oh!  Someone needs to work on her bartending skills!

 Handsome Bosch fellas! 

Serge, Christian, and Tom, during Tom's visit to Wetzlar

With another handsome Bosch fella, Chuck, at Ludwig's

First Christmas decorations!

More decorations 

1 of Serge's favorite things about Germany: No open container laws!

Walking home with some pizzas and beer to watch a Carolina game

Serge getting pumped for his walk to work

Woo hoo!  Celebrating the Gamecocks SEC East win!

Nate getting a lesson in German waste management - He's the best!

I'm so sad this is the only picture we took with him! 

At dinner with Nate at Hauptwache we had a lovely, lengthy, impromptu Goethe reading - only in Deutschland! :-)

We hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!!  We love you!! 

Ball der Wirtschaft

Serge and I had our first experience at a European ball a few weeks ago at the "Ball der Wirtschaft," which celebrates the economy and industry in Wetzlar.  Our good friend Stephanie was MC for the event and extended the invitation to us, which we gladly accepted!  (Eat your hear out, Cinderella!)  There was dinner, dancing, a band, raffle prizes, an opera singer, and of course, a comedy routine.  (What kind of ball doesn't have stand-up comedy?!)  It was a great night, and although we didn't win any prizes (I really had my heart set on the Vespa!) the highlight of the evening was definitely Serge getting pulled onstage by the German comedians!  He may not have had any clue what they were saying to him, but he did a great job faking it!  He sure made me laugh! :-)

Stephanie and Werner, our great friends who have helped us immensely with getting settled in Wetzlar.  If you're thinking of moving to the Wetzlar area, this is the best relocation agent in town! :-)

Alyssa and Tibor, our American friends, looking good all dressed up!

Sergio and Tater, ready for the ball!

 Mr. and Mrs. Surge Reinhart :-)

 Werner and Serge, bonding

Stephanie, MC'ing

My favorite Serge quote of the night, "What if they're saying, 'We hate Americans,' and we're just clapping along like, 'Bravo!  Well said!'" :-) 

I sure hope you're ordering an alcoholic beverage, 'cause you're about to need to lower your inhibitions! :-)

Comedy Duo, already picking on Serge  

Serge's comedy debut 

"Hmm, what the heck am I supposed to do here?!" 

"Oh thank goodness it's over!" 

Germans gettin' down.  Serge said it reminded him of the Haunted Mansion at Disney World

Stephanie and me!

Halloween Hike

One of our favorite things about living in Germany is the gorgeous landscape.  Everywhere you look there are rolling hills, the trees are changing colors, and the air always seems so fresh.  In this regard (and in several others) Wetzlar is quite the opposite of Fort Lauderdale, where we lived the last 2 years.  Fort Lauderdale has a great landscape also, with all the canals, palm trees, and beaches, but the palm trees are always green, the land is flat and mostly covered in concrete and high rises, and there's almost always 100% humidity clouding the air.  These characteristics don't make for great hiking.  So when the weather is nice here, Serge and I really try to take advantage of the scenery and put on our hiking boots!  Here are some pictures we took when we went exploring the Wetzlar hills on Halloween Day.  They are just a tad different from pics we've taken on Oct 31st in years past, but when in Rome...

Enjoying that fresh air!

Serge's turn!

The yellow trees are my favorite!  They remind me of our wedding!

Playing in the leaves

"Wiiiide Open Spaces!"

Sergio, taking in the view... and bringing back the sweatshirt-tied-around-the-waist look!

Nice view of the town.  This one reminds me of when I was little and the sun was too bright for my eyes, so my mom would count to 3 so I would know when to open them!  I guess Serge isn't as good of a photographer :-)

We found an old look-out post.

Pretty view!

Hey there!

And afterwards we re-carbed with some ice cream sundaes! :-)

GOO GAMECOCKS!!!

Woo hoo!!!  The South Carolina Gamecocks won the SEC East last night in a dominating game against Florida!  And thanks to the wonders of modern technology, Serge and I were able to witness the historic victory from the comfort of our apartment in Germany, on a 60-inch projector!! :-) Man, was that exciting!  The game kicked off at 7:20pm in the states, which meant a perfect 1:20am kickoff for the Reinerts.  But we learned from our mistakes last weekend (as did our football team, it seems!), and made sure to get a 2-hour nap before waking up at midnight to Skype with my parents and Liza and Jesse and get ready to cheer on the Gamecocks from 5,000 miles away!!!  We ended up hitting the hay, with giant smiles on our faces, around 5:00 this morning!  But it was TOTALLY worth it!!  Goo Gamecocks!!!

Here we are with my parents and sister at the Alabama game October 9th!  That was the last Carolina game we went to and boy was it a good'un! :-)  GOO COCKS!!!

And this is me watching the victory over Tennessee from our apt!  Pardon the mess, but this was only our third night in our new place.

And here I am last night watching GameDay!

I have a bunch of pictures I still want to upload from everything we've been up to lately - we've been so busy!  But I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to our Alma Mater!!  It's times like these that I really appreciate marrying a man that graduated from the same University as me!  (Sorry, Liza! :-) But at least you got a good one!)  GOOOO GAMECOCKS!!!!!

Random Pictures From Our Early Adventures

Guten Tag!  Serge bought a temporary internet stick for the meantime while we wait for our wireless to get installed.  Today is our 2 week anniversary of moving to Germany (it seems like we've been here much longer though - is that a good thing??), so I wanted to share some of the pictures we have taken over the past 2 weeks. Enjoy!!

Here is Serge in my parents' kitchen setting up our Slingbox before we left. The Slingbox allows us to watch my parents' TV in the US on our computers here in Germany.  It's very, very cool and we just bought a projector, so we get to watch the Gamecocks play every Saturday on a 60-inch screen!  P.S. We're 6 hours ahead of y'all, so a 7pm game starts at 1am here... The sleep deprivation is totally worth it though... when we win! :-)

This is me in the Charlotte airport, enjoying my last TCBY white chocolate mousse with sprinkles, which just happens to be my all-time favorite food!

This was at a jazz concert that Serge and I went to with our friend Werner at a pub here in Wetzlar.  The music was great!

Here's Serge in our hotel room watching the Vandy game on our new projector and speakers.  Pardon the mess!!  And I know it looks like he's watching a soap opera or something, but it was that Keith Stone commercial. :-)

One thing I love about living in Europe is all the funny little cars!!  It's so simple, but yet it gets me every time!  This is one of my favorites: a sweet little Ford number that looks like it has cankles :-)

 Woo hoo!  We have a mailbox!!  It's blurry, but I swear it says Reinert!

Here's Serge in the square outside our apartment when we were waiting on our landlord to bring us our keys.  What's that in his hand you ask?  Toilet paper, of course!

Look what I found when we were lamp shopping!  Carolina is in my mind and in our hardware store!!

Enjoying our first glass of wine in our new place!

And our little picnic on the floor before our furniture was delivered!

Walking to the train station eating a chocolate croissant.  Serge said I looked very European :-)

And here I am waiting on the train in Giessen.

Doing some laundry at the laundromat since our washing machine room is still under construction.  This was my first and hopefully last experience in a laundromat!

This was at the castle, Burg Gleiberg in Wettenberg, where Serge and I had dinner with one of his colleagues.  It was awesome!

After dinner we toured the castle and took a bunch of pictures, but they didn't turn out very well because it was so dark :-/

I think I need a new camera!  It was really beautiful, and this just doesn't do it justice.

But I think Serge and I still look pretty cute :-)

Watching a beautiful Wetzlar sunset from our apartment!

Serge, enjoying the sunset also.  It sure will be nice once our balcony is finished!

This was at dinner with our Wetzlar friends Stephanie and Werner, and a fellow ex-pat couple Alyssa and Tibor.

They had a banana wheat beer on their menu, so we had to try it.  It was actually very good!

And here is our Saturday set up!  Watching the USC vs Tennessee game!  Gooo gamecocks!!! :-)