Regensblog

Colin recently moved out and got his own apartment in another state starting a career for we which we should all be thankful. But I still couldn’t resist.

I think back fondly upon my single, bachelor, roommate-less days, but I sure don’t miss ‘em. Especially not this week while Sarah’s out of town back to the U.S. for another wedding (and if we make it back for Phil and Maureen’s, that will be three returns to the U.S. in three years for three weddings) and I’m batchin’ it again. This will be the longest stretch we’ve been apart since getting married 3 years ago.

My dad’s friend created a DVD full of scans of old slides for him; these are some of my favorites of the batch. Click any of these for a closer look or this link to see a slideshow on flickr.

Feast your ears and eyes on this — it’s the musical stylings of my mom’s entire family, as led by my dad on guitar and prompted by my mom with cue cards to honor my grandfather and his reputation as a clever consumer on a big round birthday:
…with many thanks to Johnny Cash.

Looks like my grandmother had a nice time in Mexico and even made a new friend. December sure sounds far away…

big margaritas

Originally uploaded by cliff1976.

Looks like my mom’s mom was enjoying herself on her trip to Puerto Vallarta with my parents. Sarah and I are jealous that we have to wait until December for our next visit.

[linguistic dorkiness warning]
In other news: check out this link:
http://accent.gmu.edu

I’ve always maintained that my in-laws have a more southerly accent than the people I grew up with around Detroit. Compare this guy with this one. The first one is a middle-aged man from Detroit (who is also a native speaker of a large ethnic group in the Detroit area — can you hear it?), and the second one a 21-year-old man from St. Louis, MO (they don’t have a sample from Kansas City…how about it, Po & Susie?). Hear the southernness in the ‘oo’ vowels? I think it’s different, but even more southern-sounding as you head west across Missouri. Or how about this guy, from Wichita, KS? The accent my in-laws have is probably an average between the St. Louis and Wichita speakers…which makes a lot of sense, geographically.

I could spend all day on that site. I’ve pretty much got the sample text memorized already.

My dad left this morning from Munich on his way back home via Amsterdam. You can see all the pictures from his trip here (or click the picture of him on the slopes to the left). We had a swell time showing him around Regensburg and Munich (particularly the Deutsches Museum, where he got to see close up some aerial warfare stuff he’d never seen or heard of before) and then taking him skiing in Austria. We thought the weather would prevent any decent skiing, given the high temperatures both in the lowlands and high lands, but boy were we wrong. The pictures speak for themselves.

Below are my favorite pictures from his trip. You can click any of these for a bigger view and/or to browse around the rest of the images from this trip.

Regensburg

Munich

Zell am See / Kaprun

…every time we have guests?

OK, it’s not every time, but it seems pretty frequent that our hot water (for showering, primarily, but also for doing dishes) is on the fritz when we have guests staying with us.

At least it makes for quick showers.

Picked my dad up from the airport this morning. He got in just fine, and I found him right away at the airport and we managed to be right on time for the bus to Freising to catch our train back to Regensburg.

He’s taking a short nap right now before we head out for a stroll in some glorious Spring weather. I wonder if this Spring weather is really a good thing or a bad thing though (and I’m not just talking about our ski trip to the Vital-Family-Landgasthof Stadt Wien later this week). I’m talking about “climate change” which seems to be the new euphemism for “global warming” which was perhaps the euphemism for “we’ve been shooting ourselves and everything around us in the foot.”

Petition To World Leaders: Climate change is the greatest threat facing our world today - and we are almost out of time to stop it. You must tackle this problem now, decisively and together. Start working toward a new global agreement this year. Set binding global targets for emissions to avert catastrophic climate change. Take bold action immediately - and we will join our efforts with yours.

I signed a petition today asking for the G8 participants later this week in Germany to take the actions noted above. You can do so too, just by clicking this link and filling out a very short form. It sounded like a good idea to me. We’re not asking for drastic changes to each and every consumer’s lifestyle on the planet — we’re just asking for cooperation between major economic powers to get started on making a difference.

Much like last time, a wedding is bringing us back to Michigan this year. This time, it’s my sister Carolyn and brother-in-law-to-be Max!

They’re looking at mid-December, 2007. Stay tuned for an official date and some ring bling.

Many of you may be wondering what to get the person who has everything and needs almost nothing this time of year.

Ever thought about the person in the opposite situation?

My mom asked for a donation made to Heifer International in her name this year, instead of acquiring more stuff (and those of you who know my parents know that they already have nice stuff and no shortage of it). I thought that was an excellent idea, so this year, instead of opera tickets or stuff for their various residences or gift certificates of any kind, we got her a llama. She won’t have to feed it, groom it or clean up after it, but someone else surely will be glad to.

I personally would much rather see something like this addressed to our department at work rather than the usual annual competition to see who can get the most (meaningless, yet ubiquitous) Christmas cards from our suppliers.

Here’s a blurb about the organization lifted directly from that e-Card that went out to my mom:

Heifer International is a nonprofit that alleviates hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation through gifts of food and income producing farm animals and training. These animals provide a source of protein, such as eggs and milk, for children and generate income for families through the sale of animal products. Since 1944 Heifer has helped over 4 million families in 125 countries become self-reliant. Each family “passes on the gift” by giving one or more of its animal’s offspring to another family in need.

I really like the renewability built in at multiple levels — recipients get a gift that keeps on giving to them and others and in turn. You don’t have to spend much at all. You can provide a family with a flock of geese for $20, or pool your resources with other donors by contributing toward the cost of a larger purchase like a heifer (hence the name), a goat, or a water buffalo. This feels good.

Well, there we have it; another great trip in the bag. Clicking on the links below to the restaurants, hotels, etc., will take you first to our reviews of them (read the reviews for our specific opinions), and from there you can get to their own websites where applicable. You can see all the pictures at once here, or read on for the descriptions of our daily activities and 10 or so random pictures.

Here’s how it went down:

2006-11-19

Took an early train to Salzburg from Regensburg via Landshut and managed to put our BahnCard 50 discount train passes to good use — we got 25% off of the travel from Salzburg to Vienna. Dropped our stuff at the hotel, where we got a very good deal on the rooms thanks to Sarah’s internet travel scouting skills. Biggest benefit to the hotel (besides the price): Sound of Music Channel (all hills alive, all the time). Had lunch at the K & K on Waagplatz, which was recommended to us by the staff at the hotel. Then we took the Sound of Music tour, where Sue was our guide again, just like when Gabe and Potter and I did our Salzburg trip back in November 2004. Although the weather was much better this time, I liked the smaller tour group better last time. For dinner: the Sternbräu (another Frommer’s suggestion).

2006-11-20

Arrived via the Austrian Rail (ÖBB) from Salzburg at the vacation apartment and had a nice introduction to the city from the landlord. Walked around a lot taking in the city by night. Actually, it was kind of “by night” pretty much the whole time because in rainy November, Vienna doesn’t seem to get much light, even during the day. We had dinner at Zu den Drei Hacken and it was a very nice way for us to welcome each other to Vienna.

2006-11-21

Tried to visit the Schatzkammer. Shopped a bit for an extra shirt for Cliff and some scarves to match Sarah’s new jacket.

Attended a concert at the Wiener Musikverein. Selections from Mozart, Haydn and Chausson, plus two encores (a Ravel and a Brahms) piece. Some were just strings, some were strings and piano. Very, very nice, and fairly cheap.

2006-11-22

We ate lunch at the Gulasch Museum. It’s not really a museum, but rather a restaurant specializing in the Hungarian part of the cuisine of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Really good.

Thanks, Wikipedia.

We had our Lunch-Dessert at the Café Central. We had such a fantastic cup of coffee and dessert here by ourselves (Cliff & Sarah) that we knew we just had to bring Carolyn and Max here later. And we did exactly that, on our collective last day in Vienna.

The Schatzkammer proved extremely interesting — if a little steep at €8. You can kill 1.5 hours easily gazing at the treasures of the Holy Roman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and ecclesiastical collections from these regions. Note well: Frommer’s Austria (11th Edition) lists their daily schedule as Tuesday through Sunday, this burned us. Their actual day of rest is Tuesday, not Monday.

At the Belvedere we checked out the 19th and 20th century collection and really liked some of the later stuff (including Klimt, Monet, and Kokoschka). You can read more about the history of the building on Wikipedia.

Later that day, knowing it was our last night in Vienna, we decided to each get a Schnitzel at the Schnitzelwirt Schmidt. Very good food, but beyond the quality, the quantity was astounding.



2006-11-23



Alas, this was the day we were to leave Vienna. However, the good news was that there was plenty of leftover schnitzel for lunches, which freed up a little room in the budget for Carolyn and Max to treat us at Café Central, where they got to try the wonderful coffee and we sampled other desserts. That Mohr im Hemd was still the winner in my book, but I was quite happy with my Marzipankartoffel (yellow cake inside a potato-shaped marzipan mold, dusted with chocolate powder to simulate the dirt). The other good news was the weather; we got lots of bright sunshine in the early afternoon. This permitted us to take the elevator up the top of one of the wings of the Stephansdom to enjoy the view and admire other famous buildings while killing time, waiting for our shuttle to the airport: