Oslo

First and foremost we would like to thank the Brusevold family for hosting us on our recent trip to Oslo over Thanksgiving weekend. Jan and I went to UT together, and at the Scharnell wedding this last summer, he was kind enough to invite us to come visit him and his family for the holiday.

We flew into a small airport about an hour and half south of Oslo right along the coast. As we came in for the landing we were rewarded with some beautiful views of the famous Norwegian fjords and their rocky coastline. We took a bus to the central station in Oslo and met Jan and Hope there. They gave us a brief tour of the city as we walked to the ferry to catch our ride to Jan's parents' home for dinner. We boarded the ferry and chatted away during the 20 minute commute over the fjord to the area where they lived. Jan's mom picked us up and ushered us home to a meal she had prepared for us. Not just any meal mind you, but a Norwegian specialty...moose. It was delicious, and we had a wonderful dinner sharing time with everyone.

On Saturday, we woke up and Jan and Hope took us to Oslo to tour the city. Oslo was filled with excitement due to the visit from Barack in two weeks' time to collect his peace prize. We saw city hall where the ceremony takes place (pictured above). We toured the Nobel peace prize museum, which was very interesting and had a wonderful exhibit on the transition from the time of MLK to the time of Barack. Each of us won a Nobel peace prize while we were there, only ours were better than Barack's because they were filled with chocolate.

We saw the royal palace and the impressive new opera house. We saw Norway's parliament building and the University of Oslo. Then we took a boat cruise around the harbor, which dropped us off at different points of interest. We toured the viking ship museum, the Con Tiki museum, and the Fram museum (which is the first ship used to explore the poles in 1892). We went at sunset to the Vigeland sculpture park with its numerous nude statues showing different stages in the circle of life. From there we went to eat a nice dinner and then headed back to the Brusevolds to try to take in the OSU/OU game for Shea. Unfortunately, we didn't get the game, but luckily it wasn't a bad game to miss.

On Sunday morning we were invited to a wonderful breakfast at Jan's cousin's house. She lives in an apartment near the Brusevolds so we were able to walk through the neighborhood and get a good sense of the area to take some splendid pics of the harbor. From there Jan and Hope went with us back into the city where we toured the Christmas market, visited the Norway World War II museum located in the Akershus Castle, and then did a few minutes of shopping. Shea and I then jumped on a bus back to the airport to catch our plane to Frankfurt.

We had a wonderful visit with the Brusevolds and really appreciated their hospitality over the holiday weekend. It reminded us of home, and we are thankful to have such great friends.

Amsterdam

We know what you all are thinking, but no we didn't take part in "everything" Amsterdam has to offer.

On November 20th, we were supposed to wake up early and take a direct speed train to Amsterdam to meet Seth (Shea's brother) to celebrate his birthday weekend. But ya know how sometimes alarm clocks don't work like they are suppose to...ya, that happened. So after several hours of transfers we finally arrived in the late afternoon. Fortunately, it gave Seth a chance to get lost for a while and get a sense of the place. From the train station we all headed back to the hotel to check in and drop off our bags.

We all freshened up and then went for a walk through the canal-lined streets. As it was raining cats and dogs we huddled under our umbrellas until we found a tucked away bar in the "Jordaan" district. The Jordaan district is an artistic and residential area in Amsterdam known for its quaint shops and friendly atmosphere.

We hung out with all the locals in the bar and the bartender was helpful in picking out some traditional foods and beers to try. As we were all a bit tired from our full day of travel, we headed home about 10 and were soon fast asleep.

On Saturday, we woke up to clear skies and mild temperatures...alright! We had a 10:30 tour appointment at the Anne Frank museum, which is located in the building where she hid for two years during WWII and wrote her world-renowned diary. We learned about her life, both before and during the Nazi occupation of Holland. We were able to tour the cramped spaces that 8 people called home and were struck by how difficult life was for them all.

After our tour there, we stopped for a bite of lunch and then headed to our 1:00 walking tour of the city. We met the group at the train station and then walked to the front of the royal palace in the heart of the city. From there we toured through the red light district and learned about the history of the city and its liberal leanings toward prostitution and marijuana. We were shown underground Catholic churches that survived during the Reformation and the Dutch East Indian Trading Company, which was a model for much of our modern corporate structure. We walked through a portion of the Amsterdam Historical Museum and visited the Jewish quarter with its 1960's architecture. Taxes used to be assessed according to the size of the front of your home, so we were shown the narrowest home in Amsterdam - which wouldn't allow you to lie down sideways - but did have a lovely view of a canal.

After the tour we enjoyed a great dinner to celebrate Seth's birthday on Sunday. He had done a little research and wanted to visit a popular jazz club in town. We figured out how to get there and headed out for a night on the town. We found the place and had a great time listening to some live mellow jazz and drinking some local Holland beer. We left and got some late night pizza and then caught a late night bus back to the train station near our hotel. Great times!

On Sunday, we woke up late (imagine that) and headed back into the city. We found a mass to go to that was in Latin...very pretty, but after the late night we had had it was rough for all of us to keep our eyes open. From there we headed over to Vondelpark, which is a beautiful park in the interior of the city. We left there and went to the Van Gogh museum where we toured and saw his many famous works. Don't tell Shea but the chewed bubble gum I gave her is not the found portion of his ear. Another late dinner and we called it a night. Happy Birthday Seth!

On Monday, it started raining again, but we went to an underground church museum and then walked for a while through the city, taking in the canals and the beautiful architecture of the city.

We headed back to the train station to make our train and left Seth to enjoy one more night in town before his plane back to DC in the morning.

We had a great time in Amsterdam, and we really appreciated getting to see it with Seth.

Marburg

Sorry for the delay in updates. Over the next few days I will be writing about several trips we have taken this Fall.

In late October, we took a day trip to Marburg, Germany. It is a quaint university town with one of oldest Gothic churches north of the Alps, St. Elizabeth. The university was founded in 1527 and is most famously the school that the Brothers Grimm attended and where they collected their fairy tale stories. Marburg is also the home of the Marburg Colloquy, which were meetings between Martin Luther and Zwingli to develop and establish the Protestant church.

Shea and I arrived and first visited the cathedral. It was very beautiful with amazing stained glass and a handcrafted tomb made entirely of gold. We then toured through the hilly city streets and enjoyed the half-timbered houses and shops. We followed the streets up to the castle, which dominates the city. Though not quite as big as the castle in Heidelberg, it was still impressive and offered beautiful views of the city and river valley below. From there we walked through the university district and felt a little old seeing all the university students who looked like they could pass for pre-teens.

It was a nice day trip to a pretty little town with some interesting historical significance.

Mustaches vs. Cancer

Ladies and Gentlemen- to the absolute repulsion of my wife, I have endeavored upon a great mission. What mission you ask? A mission to grow the meaty-est mustache any of you have ever seen.
I know what you are thinking..."Why, Tom Selleck, what are you up too?"
Some people run races or marathons, some compete in triathlons, some come back after retirement and finish 3rd in the Tour de France...all in the name of raising awareness and money for the research of a cure for cancer.
I have taken up a much less athletically demanding crusade for trying to raise money for cancer research. I simply signed up at http://www.mustachesvscancer.org/ and vowed to grow a sweet stache to help raise money to aid childhood cancer research because, as they say, "kids can't grow mustaches, and they shouldn't have cancer either."
So, the benefits of this event are two-fold, I get to increase my rugged handsomeness and (more importantly) raise money for this great cause. The second part of the two-fold equation is where you come in.
I hope that those of you who read our blog would do me a favor and swing by http://www.mustachesvscancer.org/ and drop a few dollars into my collection (you can type my name into the search function or just look for 'Sir Stachalot'). All the money goes to the charity and you get to watch my mustache progression with weekly photo updates on the website. As long as I receive $10 in collections each week, I promised to keep the mustache. So as long as you guys promise to keep putting a few dollars in...I can promise you a shockingly hairy upper lip...that, as a Keller, I can guarantee. The event kicked off on Monday, October 5th, with all entrants clean shaven and then ends November 25th...that is when Shea will be seen with me in public again.
So...after you check out the website and put some money in the collection...feel free to ridicule your hairy lipped friend here- My mustache promised to defend me from all negativity.

(November final product pictured above)

Oktoberfest Munchin 2009

For my 33rd birthday this year Shea treated me to a trip to Oktoberfest...yep- "the" Oktoberfest filled with lederhosen, women in dirndls, and big beers...what a cool gift.

Now, if I could only remember it.

We left Frankfurt on Saturday, Sept. 26th, on a train at about 10am and arrived into Munich at 1pm. As soon as you step off the train you are surrounded by people dressed in the traditional garb. The Oktoberfest grounds are just a 10 minute walk south of the main train station in Munich and our hotel was situated directly between them both...so to say we were in the middle of the mayhem would be absolutely appropriate.

We checked in and immediately changed clothes..."into what" you may ask...that would be my lederhosen and Shea into her dirndl! Yep, we were all decked out!

We headed over to the Oktoberfest grounds and were impressed by the size and number of people there. The best way to describe it is to equate it to the State Fair of Texas, but instead of having the fair halls filled with the baking competition winners, hand sewn prairie skirts, and next years line of Chevy's...fill them with tens of thousands of beer drinkers looking for a party. Unbelievable.

We walked around to get a lay of the land, and unfortunately by the time we got there in the afternoon, the beer tents are packed full and security won't let any new revilers in. That simply meant that partying inside a beer tent would have to wait till tomorrow and today we would have to party at one of the outdoor beer gardens.

Looking the part, security assumed we were locals and quickly allowed us into one of the Hippodrom beer gardens. We sat at a large table with a collection of Bavarians who we shared the evening with drinking beer, eating, and having a great time. They were super nice and gave us all the insider scoop on how best to enjoy the festivities. Now, Oktoberfest starts everyday at 10 am and then ends each night at 10:30. We didn't want to ruin ourselves for Sunday so we called it a night about 9 and went and got some dinner. We headed back to the hotel room and could hear the party leaving for the next several hours...people were having a good time.

We had been told by our new Bavarian Oktoberfest friends that we wouldn't need to worry about getting to Oktoberfest super early on Sunday to get in a tent. Usually, people start lining up by 8 to get in the tents on the other days. We followed their advice and got to the festival site a little after 10:00. We were able to walk around and duck in all the beer tents and get a few pics of them and decide on which one we wanted to try first.

When we stepped in the Hofbrauhaus tent at 10:30, it was packed and there were already people dancing on the tables and singing. Decision was made for where we would hang out first. We found a table, made quick friends with our table mates, and ordered our first round of giant beers (1 liter each).

At noon, we were already into our second beer and had eaten a roasted chicken for lunch. All us Oktoberfest-ians were ready and in marched the band which started the next 10 hours of ever-repeating German drinking songs. We finished our second beers and decided we wanted to go ride some of the rides and see some of the areas we hadn't been able to see yet.

We rode a huge ferris wheel which offered great views of the festival and of Munchin. We then slid on the giant slide and ate some dessert. After that, we said enough of the rides it's time to get back to business.

We headed into Augustiner beer tent and sat down at a table. Our table mates this time included 3 guys from Holland who were hilarious and made for great comedy over the next several beers. We had our own party going on that included our table and all the ones surrounding us. Great fun!

We had to leave at 8 to walk back to the train station to catch our train back to Frankfurt. We made it in time and fell asleep for our 3 hour trip home.

It was a great time and a wonderful birthday and we hope to get to go again some day.

Gonzales European Vacation

So our close friends Adrian and Kelly Gonzales came to visit us all the way from Georgetown, Texas. They arrived on Friday, September 4th, and stayed through Sunday, September 13th, and did a bunch of traveling in between.

They got into Frankfurt around 7 am on Friday, and I picked them up from the airport. We came back here to the apartment to drop off their luggage, and then out the door we went to see some of the sites in Frankfurt. They saw the Roemerplatz, the Main River, the Dom cathedral, and the Zeil shopping galleries all before 2pm. To say that the Gonzaleses were ready to get their "vacation-on" would be an accurate description. We came back to the apartment and packed up because at 6 we had a train to catch to Berlin. We met Shea at the train station and took the 5 hour train ride to the German capital city. We hopped in a taxi to our hotel and then watched the Gonzales's pass out after 26 hours of being awake. Gotta love jet-lag.

On Saturday, we got ready and headed into the heart of the city. The weather was cool, but clear, and we were ready to see what this historically significant city had to offer. We decided to take a walking tour that included all of the major sites like the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the last remaining section of the Berlin wall, the Reichstag (German Capital Building), Hitler's bunker, the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, East German Government Buildings, the location of the Nazi book burning, and numerous museums, churches, and memorials. We were all thankful we did the tour as the history and significance of the sites just wouldn't have been the same without the perspective the guide was able to impart to the group. After the tour, we headed back into what used to be East Berlin and had dinner at a traditional German restaurant, before heading back towards our hotel and closing down a bar.

I, for one, was feeling a bit rough on Sunday, but we headed back out to more thoroughly investigate some of the sites. We went back to Check Point Charlie and walked around for quite a while checking out the history of the wall and its significance in an outdoor museum. It told the history of the end of WWII, the division of Berlin and Germany by the Allies, the development of the Cold War and construction of the wall, some stories of successful and deadly escape attempts, and the final re-unification of Berlin and Germany. It brought a whole new understanding to the video images we could all remember from our youth of the German citizens standing on the wall with sledgehammers and pickaxes destroying the symbol of division. From there we went to the Memorial for Murdered Jews of Europe museum. We toured the facility and we were all silenced by the atrocities history must never forget. From there we walked around a while and then headed back towards our hotel and enjoyed a late Thai food dinner.

On Monday, we headed back to the Reichstag, which allows visitors to tour the glass dome that sits atop the legislative chamber. After standing in line a while, we were then treated to a view of Berlin from on high, as well as, a lesson on Germany's representative Democracy. The building itself has an interesting history, and we were glad to have gotten to take the tour before our train headed back to Frankfurt early that afternoon.

On Tuesday, Shea went to work, while Adrian, Kelly, and I went to Heidelberg. We took a 9am train and got there in time to meet an old friend of Adrian's from high school, who lives and teaches in Heidelberg. We met him, his wife, and newborn son and enjoyed a nice lunch, before touring the old city of Heidelberg and heading up to the castle. We took the tour of the castle and enjoyed the beautiful views of the surrounding landscape.

On Wednesday, we toured Frankfurt some more and gave Kelly and Adrian a chance to do a little shopping downtown. We then repacked and caught an afternoon train to beautiful (yet expensive) Zurich, Switzerland. We got in late and went to bed, then woke up Thursday morning to nice weather. It wasn't quite as clear as we had hoped, but as the day wore on we were able to make out more and more of the Alp summits to our South. We took a train to the top of one of the surrounding mountains that overlooked Zurich. We climbed to the top of an observation tower and looked out as far into the horizon as we could. We then headed back down to the city and walked through the shopping avenues all the way to the lake. There, we boarded a ship and were treated to a short cruise around the lake. People were out sunning and swimming and enjoying the last bit of summer before the altitude and change of season takes hold. After the cruise, we walked through the old city of Zurich and enjoyed the quaint feel of the older sections of town.

On Friday, the weather was a bit cooler and cloudier, so we rented bikes and made our own bike tour of the old town and around a portion of the lake. We stopped for some lunch and then ate it lakeside, doing our part to feed the swans, ducks, and seagulls. We then toured some of the old churches of the city, seeing magnificent stained-glass windows that were created by the artist Chagall. Friday night, our friends Brian and Tiffany Mooney from Dallas arrived in Zurich, after they had just completed some traveling through Italy and Switzerland. The 6 of us went out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and enjoyed each others' company. It reminded Shea and me of good times back home.

On Saturday, we all met up with the Mooneys again and had some lunch, before we headed back to the train station and then Frankfurt. We got in to Frankfurt and enjoyed some good ol' American burgers, beer, and college football at a local sports bar and toasted what was an exciting week with good friends.
We had a wonderful time having them here, and Shea and I were sad to see them go. But we were glad to have gotten to experience those places with them and hope that they get to come again soon.

Hamburg

Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany and is one of the largest shipping hubs in all the world. Everyone is quick to point out that Hamburg has more bridges than Venice and a colorful history that includes pirates, kings, WWII devastation, the Beatles, and high fashion.

Being that Hamburg is in the very North of Germany and has a close association with the water and sea, Shea and I decided it was definitely better to visit during the summer than in it would be to visit during the colder time of year. We took a bullet train from Frankfurt to Hamburg which took a total of about 4 hours and got us in at about 9pm on Friday, August 21st. We headed from the train station to our hotel to check in and drop off our backpacks. Our hotel was just outside of the city center and was located in a building that was once the home of the city's gas production. The hotel and surroundings had been re-done in an ultramodern design that kept some of the industrial look and feel which added up to a unique hotel atmosphere. We had a late dinner and then headed to sleep to prepare ourselves for our walking tour the next day.

On Saturday, we stuffed ourselves on hotel breakfast and then headed downtown to city hall to begin a walking tour that included all of the major sites and historical markers in Hamburg. We toured City Hall, a visit to the top of the St. Nickolai Church WWII memorial, a visit to the centuries' old warehouse district, a walk through the design district with its modern shops and high-fashion stores, a stroll down the boardwalk at the harbor, and finally an "interesting" wander down Reeperbahn in the St. Pauli district (which is considered Europe's largest red light district, and was where the Beatles got their first real start in the early 1960's playing in several of its brothels). We finished the night off with another late meal and made plans for a harbor cruise on Sunday to enjoy the great weather.

Sunday, we headed back downtown to the harbor and jumped on a short tour ship. It showed us some beautiful views of the city from the harbor, beautiful parks, and multi-million dollar homes sitting adjacent to the water. We sat by the harbor and enjoyed some ice-cream and a live rock concert before heading to the train station to make our trip back to Frankfurt. Hamburg was a great city, and we are glad we got to visit it during the warm summer. Here are some photos for you to enjoy.