Jana's top 10

Looking back on 2008 I thought it might be fun to do my own top 10 lists.

Top 10 favorite books I read in 2008
1-4. Twilight series- couldn't put it down! Maybe my absolute favorite books of all time. There was just something so captivating about this Vampire love saga. I think it's the altruistic-I'd do anything for you love story mixed in with the action and suspense. I would read it a 3rd and 4th time.
5. The Life of Pi-every time I see a boat I think of this book. Most likely a true story and such an amazing one! What does a boy, a boat and a tiger have in common? Read this to find out!
6. Three Men in a Boat-English humor that was actually hilarious.
7. The Book Thief-Ann Franke's fictitious comparable.
8. Ann Franke-Never read it before, really gets you thinking.
9. The Hiding Place-This book meant more having toured the actual home now turned museum.
10. My Family and Other Animals- Not much of a plot but such a different view of life, it really makes me wander what the creatures around me are doing. I find myself remembering experiences from this book quite often. It made me want to go to Greece even worse!

Other mentionable' s
11. Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde
12. Around the World in 80 days.

I have little selection for books in English here in Germany, just what other people have and are willing to lend. Still, reading has been my favorite past time this year. Not being able to watch tv to wind down has really given me much more time to read. Escapism in a book can be much better than a movie. The details and background of events and people are so much richer without having to abide to a 2 hour time limit. I have really enjoyed reading this year!

Top 10 places I enjoyed seeing
1. Collodi, Italy. This hill town was so picturesque without any other tourists. The sunset was fabulous as we looked out of acres of olive orchards on top of an ancient fortress wall.
2. Rissen beach, Germany. Just 10 minutes from my home, I loved the afternoons we spent sitting on the beach and watching the gigantic ships move down the Elbe river.
3. Netherland. Dad and Janice and I spent a weekend without the kids here and it was great! My favorite was the Zaanse Schans Museum with all those windmills to see and cheese to sample and wooden shoes to buy. Seeing Muiden Castle was really great to!
4. Altes Land, Germany. We took our bikes on a ferry to the Altes Lands last spring when all the orchards were in bloom. The sweet scent of the blossoms were amazing to pedal threw.
5. Klein Flottbeck Botanic Gardens, Germany. I love being in gardens, unhurried, no agenda. I especially love this one 20 minutes from my home and free to go in! The rhododendrons in bloom at the Japanese gardens were breath taking.
6. Cinque Terre, Italy. Seeing these 5 villages clinging to the rock cliffs with the turquoise ocean slapping up next to it really was a fabulous way to spend a day.
7. Rothenburg and Dinkelsbuhl, Germany. Two towns each surrounded by old castle walls with cool turrets (look out points) and gates that made it so picturesque to walk around.
8. Villa del Balbianello, Italy. Touring this villa and it's gardens surrounded by lake Como was wonderful. The weather was great and we didn't feel pressed to do something else just enjoy the ambiance.
9. Sylt, Germany. A German owned island on the Denmark boarder. We went in March and had terrible weather but exploring the neighborhoods with thatched roof houses and seeing each of the 5 lighthouses was a wonderful addition to spending the day at the beach!
10. Cotswald, England. This is a small English town who mining industry has turned their small mining pits into little lakes when excavation is finish. It was again terrible weather but I enjoyed being out in nature so much more than being in the crowded main cities. Even hiding in the playground castle as a family waiting for the worst of the storm to blow over. We ate at a quaint little English pub and we could read everything on the menu (it being in English).

Top 10 favorite dishes or places I ate.
1. Ted and I went to this one fancy restaurant for our 8th anniversary this year. There was no menu just a set multiple course meal. They brought out like 24 little plates for the appetizer all with different delectable tastes.
2. Not far from our home along the Elbe River in Blankanese I had a shrimp risotto at this restaurant that was fabulous! The boat parade going down the river really added to the ambiance.
3. Quark Ballchen sold by an outdoor vendor on our trek up the hill to Neuschwanstein Castle. These little deep fried lactose filled pastries were sooo amazing! Quark is similar to yogurt but some how processed different. I really can't tell much difference.
4. Our Christmas eve pork tenderloin. It was a joint effort on the part of Ted and I but this roast turned out fantastic!
5. My friend Ulrike's Mango Chicken Curry Lasagna. This really is as good as it sounds.
6. Curry Pumpkin Soup. What can I say, I have a thing for curry.
7. The Spaghetti that this restaurant serves on Landungsbruke Pier. I've got to make it back there.
8. My Almond Chicken. How could I forget? It should be higher up but I don't want to redo the numbering. I modified a recipe and came up with this baked chicken dipped in a homemade chicken soup/gravy then into ground almond and drizzled with butter. Yummmmy!
9. Milka's feur (fire) chocolate bars that has chili peppers in it. Not a main course like the others but could be, it's that good. Much, much better than the Lindt brand of Chili Chocolate. Milka's tastes exactly like my friend Heather's hot chocolate with chili that she gave me for Christmas a few years back.
10. Again, not a main coarse but Pringel's came out with a Thai Aroma flavored chip that was so good I could have bought a case load. Unfortunately I haven't found them for sale again here, but the memories of my satisfaction still linger. Not on my list would be Pringel's roast beef flavored chips, gag-a-riffic!

Top 10 movies *
1. Star Dust-Seeing Robert Deniro doing the can-can and Michelle Pfeiffer's boobs suddenly sag was just so hilarious! This movie rivals Princess Bride as far as romantic fairy tales and may maintain the same cult following.
2. Baby Momma-I saw this one in the airplane flying back home to Utah this summer. Everyone was sleeping and I was trying so hard not to bust a gut and burst out laughing, my eyes were watering from laughing so much!
3. PS I Love You-This one made my eyes water to but for the opposite reason. I read this book a month before seeing the movie. The book vs movie was quite different and I like them both. This movie had great eye candy and I so want to see Ireland now (or was that Scotland, I can't remember).
4. The Secret Life of Bees-I saw this one in Utah with my sister, a great message, one that gets you thinking and grateful I was born in the time period I was.
5. Mama Mia-Our whole family has been singing these songs ever since. I loved when they were clearly singing badly. Wow, Greece looks awesome!
6. Drillbit Taylor-Owen Willson is just hands down funny.
7. August Rush- This touching movie helped me from having nightmares about the actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers getting off scotch free after murdering 2 people in the movie Match Point. So in August Rush he plays a good guy and while the movie is very unlikely it was still heart warming. I need my shows to end 'happily ever after' or it just irks me to no end.
8. Bridge to Terabithia- I saw this one recently, New Years Eve, it reminded me so much of the movie My Girl, which touched my heart so much a decade ago. Wow don't I sound old?
9. Some Like It Hot-This was an old black and white show with Marilyn Monroe that a friend lent me. The ending was pretty funny.
10. Mr. Bean's Holiday- I can't think of any other movies but the girls and I have watched this one a lot this year. Aubrie loves to do Mr. Bean interpretations!

* So, clearly my top 10 lists are dependent on a ton of variables; what the weather was like, how annoying my kids are being, how much I had previously eaten, who I was with, my stress level at the time, so on and so on. Plus my memory is not very good, so things from before July probably didn't even register on my thought process. Trying to remember names to movies by doing an internet search I realized there was a ton of movies released that I never even heard of that came out last year. We only went to the theater here about 4 times this year (the English speaking one is downtown, an hour away). Mostly we borrowed what friends had in their DVD collections for our weekend entertainment.

There you have it, I'd love to hear your comments and personal top 10 lists!

The binky fairy visits

Kaitlan has done great all month no longer begging for her binky, so we had the binky fairy pay her a visit to reward all her efforts.

Ted's beard

I thought you guys back home might like to see Ted's new look. Since our Christmas break began Ted decided to stop shaving and is now sporting a manly albeit Santa Claus-esque beard. I threatened to stop shaving as well but ended up giving in. Ted is loving the 10 extra minutes he saves each morning by not having to shave. Eventually though he's going to want to be kissed again. We'll see how long it lasts!

"Mad" King Ludwig's Castle's

We finished off our trip to southern Germany by seeing the most famous German tourism site, "Mad" King Ludwig's castles near Fussen. Ludwig's Neuschwanstein (noy-SHVAHN-shtine) castle was Walt Disney's inpiration and fronts almost all of the German tourist books. I had high expections I guess and was sadly dissapointed. It was built in the 1870's but made to look like a century older than it is with lots of turrets and arched ceilings. This particular king got all this notoriety because he wasn't really interested in politics like he should have been to run his kingdom. Instead he spent his time and fortune building castles all over Bavaria, employeeing lots people I'd imagine. His mysterious early demise ads to the intriuge of his life and consequently people wanting to tour his fancy palaces. We went thru Hohenschwangau, the castle that Ludwig was born in and lived in occaisionly before walking up the hill to see Neuschwanstein (meaning New Swan Rock). Both really fancy and picturesque but the best part of the day was stopping for these little deep fried doughnut hole type pasteries called Quark Ballchen. Soo delcious! I am so going to bring these back to the States when we come home!

Munich

New Years day we took the train into Munich. Most things being closed for the holiday we mostly enjoyed our time walking around the main city square-Marienplatz, found the famous beer hall Hofbrauhaus, and wandered into a beautiful Roman Cathedral that had some kind of service going on for the New Year. It was interesting to see the formality of the ceremony that involved incense and some church people in very fancy robes. The main guy began giving his sermon (in German of coarse) and I realized how completley foreign all things were in this church from what I am used to. I am often struck with the realization that people all over the world are dealing with day to day issues just like I am; waking up, feeding the family, heading to school or work, enjoying some time together in the evening before heading to bed. It's amazing to think that some people do this with the walls of Rothenburg in the back ground or spend their sunday's at the Roman Catholic church in Munich. To them this is the norm and a life in the very mormon suburb's of Utah would seem very foreign.

Starnburg

For the next 4 days we stayed at a friend of Ted's in Starnburg, just outside of Munich. We spent New Year's eve enjoying ourselves at Starnburg lake before having our own family party complete with fireworks. Aubrie choose all the games to play and even fixed us dinner! The girls were asleep but Ted and I got to enjoy the spectacular firework display from every single German family lighting off hundreds of bottle rockets to ward off the evil spirits for the New Year.

Rothenburg day 2

Before heading further south we decided to spend a second day in Rothenburg since it seemed the sun might be out to make things a bit warmer. We hiked on the path on top of the city's wall and enjoyed some beautiful vantage points. Kaitlan though refused to walk and was nearly frozen through.

Romantic Road-Wurtzburg

In Wurtzburg we toured the Residenz Palace. Layed our much like Versailles and opulent to the extreme, it was seldom lived in, although they say Napoleon spent the night. It was completely destroyed during the war then meticulously rebuilt just for us tourist to pay to see. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon in a warm, fancy place-uh, palace.

Romantic Road- Dinkelsbuhl

The town of Dinkelsbuhl was 30 minutes away from Rothenburg via the Romantic Road and every bit as nice. It seemed to me that all of the buildings within the wall were newly painted and all in the most wonderfully rich colors. We spent the day walking the perimeter of the wall and trying to decide which color of house and shutter combo we liked best. Ted liked the brown on brown (light and dark). I found a light sage green that had a hint of blue that I liked the best. Of coarse without all the terra cotta oranges and tellows with the occaisonal purple the town wouldn't have had near the charm.

the Romantic Road -Rothenburg

The day after Christmas we packed up and headed to Southern Germany via the Romantic Road. Our first destinations was Rothenburg (5 hours away) where we stayed in a very nice inn out in the country with the ancient walled town being only 10 minutes away.The day after Christmas we packed up and headed to Southern Germany via the Romantic Road. Our first destinations was Rothenburg (5 hours away) where we stayed in a very nice inn out in the country with the ancient walled town being only 10 minutes away.

Christmas

We enjoyed another nice Christmas together as a family here in Hamburg. We celebrated in the traditional American way of opening up our gifts the morning of the 25th and not the evening of the 24th like most German's who also have a Santa bring their children's gifts to them. Many people here also wait to put up their tree until Christmas eve as well. Some even go so far as to ban their family from the living room so that when it's time to celebrate Christmas eve their family walks in to the decorated tree with presents. Although they may not have a tree, festivities begin here the first of December with advent calenders being a must for all children. St. Nicholas comes to their shoes on the 5th so it seems British/American tradition of the stockings stemmed from that practice. Everyone received a lot of nice things and we are so grateful for those who sent packages, Thank you!