Flower Parade Pictures

Here are my pictures from the Flower Parade! I have tons of pictures, so these are some of my best. As you can see, we were right up next to the street and there was no crowd control. This was both good and bad. Good because you got to see the floats right up close, bad because everyone kept running in the street to get pictures, so lots of my pictures are right up close after all the people finally moved. It was pretty crazy! I plan to post more pictures to facebook later. Enjoy!!

Tulips, Hyacinths, and More Tulips

Last weekend we visited the Netherlands to see the Tulips! It was really really neat. Fields and Fields of Tulips and Hyacinths; they were just incredible. We also went to the Keukenhof Garden, one of the most visited flower gardens in the world. As we drove to the garden from our hotel we rolled down the windows to take pictures and found you could smell the flowers from the car!!

The weekend was also extra special because they were having the Flower Parade. Similar to the Rose Parade in Pasadena, but with Tulips and on a smaller scale. It was really neat, but I don't know if we would try to go to the Parade again, only because it made the Gardens and Fields extremely busy! We were stuck in a traffic jam for almost an hour just driving in. Plus the Gardens were packed!! We enjoyed it, but will likely skip the parade next year and just go to see the flowers.

Since I have tons and tons of pictures, I will split them into 2 posts. This post has all the pictures of the Flower Fields and Keukenhof Garden. Enjoy!!

Ich lerne Deutsch!

as in "I'm learning German!"

That's right, after living in Germany for almost a year I have finally gotten enrolled in a German class! I really want to come away from this experience at least knowing a lot more about the language than I do now. The class is 6 weeks long, meeting twice per week. While the class is just an introduction to the language, it should still be worth it because I don't even know how to count in German! This is necessary for shopping at the Bacheries I love to much! I am also tired of having to point to what I want or hold up my fingers for how many! I really want to be able to do more.

I guess we'll see how it goes, but with the first class down it is looking pretty good so far.

The sentence of the day for our first class was, "ScheiB wetter heute!" Which translates to, "Shitty weather today!" Gotta be a good sign that they are teaching us curse words on the first day!

Spargel

We cooked our Spargel, aka White Asparagus, that we bought at the Trier Marketplatz last night. There is a lot more detail that goes into this type of Asparagus than one realizes. First of all are the considerations to take when purchasing it. You want to make sure you are buying straight, thick stalks. Mainly because Spargel has to be peeled before cooking, so you want to make sure that the peeling will be easier and you will have substantial volume still left over. You also want to make sure the Asparagus is fully white. Some look a little purple, but those are considered inadequate. You especially want to make sure that they are fresh, because apparently Spargel goes bad within 2 days of harvesting! The stalks should be a little soft when pinched, and when you pinch the end, a little bit of water should come out. That's how you know that they are good.

Next, comes the cooking. The most significant step is the peeling. I had no idea, but when I researched cooking the Spargel this is what all the websites said. You then boil the Asparagus for about 6-7 minutes so that it softens, but isn't mushy. Spargel is traditionally served with Hollandaise Sauce, so that is another thing you have to make. Wow, who knew there was so much involved!

Peeling the Spargel.

The Spargel boiling, next to my homemade Hollandaise sauce!

Dinner; YUM!! We had the Spargel with Hollandaise Sauce, Baked Potato, and Buffalo Steak. All were wonderful!!! I meant to take a picture before I started eating, but I got excited and forgot. :) The Spargel turned out great! Soft, but not mushy, and a little sweeter than Green Asparagus. We will definitely be buying more in the future!

You can call me Professor Roth...

I have a new job! I have just started teaching online courses for UMUC-Europe!! Right now I am in my 3rd week of teaching Biology 101. It is really different and a lot of work, especially since this is my first time teaching the course, but I really enjoy it. Right now I am doing most things as I go since I wasn't really assigned my class until last minute and couldn't do much pre-work, so I have quite a few long evenings each week (Sunday nights especially since they're right before the start of the new week). But things are going pretty good overall and I think my classes will be a lot easier in the future since I will have all the class material created by then and will also have some experience under my belt. I hope to eventually branch out into higher level Biologies and possibly face-to-face classes too, but right now I am focusing on giving my best to my first course.

Oh, and I don't make the students call me Professor Roth. Mrs. Roth, Ma'am, or any other way is fine with me. :)

Spring is Officially Here!

Today we went to Trier for the afternoon. It was spure of the moment, but the day was just so gorgeous we decided we wanted to go walk around the Marketplatz. I also wanted to get some fresh flowers since it's been since about November since I've gotten some from Trier.

Enjoying the afternoon at a Sidwalk Eis Cafe. That's an Ice Cream Cafe. Love them!!

The most elaborate street performer I think I have ever seen in my life! He is a fountain with working water!!

Fresh fruit and veggies. Germany is known for it's White Asparagus, or "Spargel", so we got some as well as some blood oranges and tomatoes. We're going to try to cook the asparagus on the grill tomorrow.

Fresh flowers!! I got 2o beautiful white Tulips for 8E!

I heart London

We decided to go back to London last weekend to celebrate Phillip's Birthday! Our friends Rhiannon and Drew joined us too since Drew's Birthday was just a week before Phillip's. Rhiannon had been to London before, but hadn't seen too many of the sights and it was Drew's first time there, so we acted as tour guides. It was a lot of fun!! I just love going to London because there is always so much to do, and it's just a 1 hour plane ride for us. Can't beat it!

Buckingham Palace

The Prince Edward's Theater where we went to see the musical Jersey Boys! Told the story of the music group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. AMAZING!!! I would totally go see it again!!


Tower Bridge

Big Ben and Parliament with Westminster Abbey in the background. We tried to go in Westminster Abbey since it was closed the last time we came to London, and wouldn't you know it was closed AGAIN. Someday...


Our group on the London Eye. We took a Champagne Flight. Lots of fun! We got to skip the que and then also had much fewer people on our flight since it was supposed to be more private.

Can't wait to go back again!!

The Clackers

We are experiencing another fun little German tradition, The Clackers. Over Easter, between Good Friday and Easter morning the church bells do not ring as an act of mourning Jesus' crucification. So intsead the town's children walk around and clack their nosie makers when the bells should be ringing. Mainly they come around at 6:30am, noon, and 6:30 pm. Such a neat tradition!

I haven't forgotten!

AGH!! It has been forever since I last posted! Mainly because we went back to the states for 2 weeks for Bob and Amber's wedding. It was wonderful! And then we came back and I got busy with O.M again. Thankfully that is now over. But now I start teaching my first college biology course next week and I have so much to do to get ready!

So, updates are coming soon, I just have been uber busy!!

Congratulations to Bob and Amber!!!! We love you and were so happy we could be there on your special day!

The happy couple enjoying the KC BBQ at the Reception.

O.M.

This past November I got wrangled into Coaching an Odyssey of the Mind team. This is how it happened. I was in the teacher's lounge on my first day of work having lunch. It was really quiet and in order to break the ice and try to make friends I noticed one teacher was wearing an O.M shirt, so I told her I was in O.M all through middle and high school, even placing 4th at World one year. To which she happily replied, "We need Coaches!" AGH!!!! I had to open my big mouth!

In February we were supposed to have our district meet. (I was secretly hoping we wouldn't make it on to the next round!) Not that I don't enjoy helping out for the most part (we'll get to that), but O.M was really eating up my time. We meet 3-4 times a week, for 2-4 hours at a time! However, the meet got cancelled due to snow, and since our problem only had 2 teams competing anyways, both teams got passed on to the next round.

Here they are at the Performance Night last week. All the local O.M teams performed and got judging feedback since they didn't have the competition.


Yeah, all those props and costumes are being redone! But as I discuss later on, they had no money and did the best they could. One judge actually asked me pertaining to their costumes, "So, did they just cut holes in sheets?" Ummm, yeah!!

The Chili/hot dog feed at the Performance Night we put on as a fundraiser. Big props to the parents on my team, because they basically did all the work putting it together and running it!


And Oh, those people on the left side of the table, are they buying food? NO! They are the F-ing health inspectors who showed up and tried to shut us down!! It's a fundraiser; FOR KIDS! Ahh, this is the drama I get to deal with. Our food "failed" the inspection and we sold it anyways! Made $600 bucks too!

And here we are, the beginning of March, and most my time is still being dedicated to my little O.M team. They are a rag-tag bunch, most participating for the first time ever, and well, I don't think they realized the commitment it takes nor the detail of work necessary. They have a great skit, but the props are severely lacking. So all the props and costumes are now being re-done so that they might be able to win and go on to World. We'll see though, World is in Michigan and if they do win they have to pay their own way (we're talking international flights here)!!

For the most part, I enjoy working with the team! The girls are cute and have an unimaginable amount of energy! I actually told the parents last week to cut off all their sugar; they all need to be on diabetic diets!! The part I absolutely hate, and will be the reason I will NEVER EVER volunteer to do this here again is dealing with the O.M Head Coach for our school. I can't get into all the antics she's pulled here, as it seems the stuff she does keeps getting worse and worse, but mainly she's a pompous ass, only cares about herself and her individual team, and controls all the finances to the point that I have to beg for pennies!!

But we'll keep on trucking. Next competition is at the end of March, and they have lots to fix and improve upon. Thankfully I will not be able to help out for the next 2 weeks, so I am now passing the responsibilities on to a couple of the moms. I will be enjoying my break!! Hope they have fun! :)