Carla's Visit Day 3

On Wednesday we went shopping near Hackescher Markt. Found a bunch of really cute shops, including an actual millinery.

After lunch, we took a boat tour of Berlin.

That night, we went to an incredible string quartet concert at the Konzerthaus Berlin.

Carla's Visit Day 2

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to join Keith and Carla for most of her second day here because I had to go to work. They went to morning mass at one of the few Catholic churches in Berlin, then visited a number of museums. We met up to go to a concert at the Berliner Philharmonie. While we were all excited about the concert, it turned out to be very very strange. Lots of the same dissonant chord and silence. We left at intermission and headed to dinner in Friedrichshain.

Carla's Visit Day 1

Keith's cousin Carla came to visit us in March. We picked her up at the airport and then, after lunch, went to the Fernsehturm. It was on a Monday afternoon, so there wasn't much of a line to get up to the top, plus the weather was clear, so the views were really great.

Here's Carla and me at the top:

After visiting the Fernsehturm, we walked along Unter den Linden Strasse until we reached the Brandenburg Gate:

We had a delicious dinner at Tiergarten Quelle, a restaurant underneath the S-Bahn tracks near the Tiergarten.

Alex's Visit

In January, my friend Alex came to visit us. He was in Germany for business and came to Berlin for the weekend with two of his co-workers. We had a really great time catching up and exploring the city.

At dinner, we both ordered the meatballs and potatoes. I won our eating contest.

Robo-Josie

One of our friends got Josie a light-up ball. She loves it:

Dresden Day 3

On our last day in Dresden, we split up so that I could see the treasure rooms in the palace (truly incredible, but no cameras allowed) and Keith could wander around and take some pictures. The treasure rooms were amazing, just incredibly opulent. Some pictures are shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnes_Gew%C3%B6lbe

Here are some pictures that Keith took around the city:

Frauenkirche in background:

Catholic Hofkirche:

Statue of August the Strong, Elector of Saxony, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania:

More Zwinger:

Dresden Castle:

Zwinger:

Western Dinner!

Seen outside our hotel in Dresden:

Zwinger

The Zwinger used to be the gatehouse for the Saxon royalty back in the day. Now, it is home to a number of museums, including an art museum, a collection of armor, a porcelain museum and a collection of astronomical instruments. It was really interesting to visit them and also to realize that, at one point, all of these riches belonged to a single family.

Here are some photographs of the outside (no pictures in the museums):

And a picture of us:

We really need to start carrying around my camera, too. No one can seem to figure out how to use Keith's camera. This picture was the result of at least five minutes of posing and explanation.

Dresden Day 1

In early February we took a trip to Dresden for the weekend. We arrived Friday night and wandered around a bit after dinner to get our bearings.

Frauenkirche and Martin Luther statue:

This is a reconstruction of the Frauenkirche, which was decimated in the bombings of World War II. The interior is gorgeous and cannot be photographed.

Fürstenzug with catholic cathedral in background:

In the background of this picture is a mural in Messein porcelain of the leaders of Saxony.

Berlin's Bears

Back in January, Keith went to the Berlin city museum with his German class. The museum has two bears that live there since the bear is the symbol of Berlin.

This is the museum itself:

Icy Spree

Ice on the Spree in January.

Keith took these pictures in late January. The chunks of ice moved very very slowly with the flow of the Spree.

Grüne Woche Pictures

Here are some pictures Keith took at Grüne Woche.

Entrance:

Moscow breads:

Beer wall:

Engagement Pictures

While we were in the Philadelphia area over Christmas, we were able to meet with our wedding photographer to get some engagement pictures in Center City. Here are some of them:

You can see more at http://jasonprezant.zenfolio.com/amykeithengaged

Lisa's Graduation

While home for Christmas, we went to my sister's graduation from the University of Missouri. She gave a speech at the graduation ceremony.

Family picture:

Lisa at the podium:

KaDeWe

KaDeWe is Kaufhaus des Westens, the second largest department store in Europe, with Harrod's being the largest. It is enormous and very impressive. We've been there a couple of times, including during the Christmas season.

Here's what the ground floor looked like:

There was a man walking around dressed as an old-school Santa.

On one of the higher floors of KaDeWe, a harpist was dressed as an angel and was playing Christmas carols:

The second floor from the top has almost every food imaginable. It has sections for different regions of the world and different counters where different cuisines can be eaten. The top floor is another eatery with a soaring glass ceiling. We treated ourselves with delicious desserts after our long day of Christmas shopping:

Happy Birthday to me!

I celebrated my birthday with a week of festivities. The weekend before I got my birthday presents from Keith (beautiful earrings and a puzzle). The day of, he made me a delicious bacon, blue cheese and egg sandwich for breakfast (seen below) and this lasagna for dinner: http://smittenkitchen.com/2012/02/lasagna-bolognese/

At work, I had a really nice party with cake and sparkling wine! My co-workers gave me flowers, a gift certificate, a book and tickets to a museum, which was all very unexpected. The weekend afterwards we had people over for a really great party. Everyone joined together to give me flowers and a gift certificate to a restaurant where you eat in complete darkness.

Snow!

Even though the weather has been beautiful this weekend (in the 60s and sunny), a month ago I was just as excited about snow:

Attempting to take a Christmas picture

We thought it would be really cute to get a picture of Josie and Loki wearing antlers and a Santa hat, respectively. Our attempts at obtaining such a picture were unsuccessful.

First, Josie ate the top off of Loki's Santa hat. Then, she wouldn't sit still on the couch:

Next, Lokie refused to wear his hat-turned-collar:

So we tried getting just a picture of Loki:

Notice how he's pushing away from Keith, attempting to break free. Notice here the stare of death:

This was our best shot:

Being adorable is hard work:

The situation degraded quickly:

Crazy Loki