2011-02 Bad Oeynhausen Germany

After visiting Singen, Ray went to Bad Oeynhausen in north central Germany. Bad Oeynhausen is about 45 minutes from the airport in Hanover and is connected via the autobahn.  Needless to say it was a fast trip as the driver hit at least 115mph during some stretches.

The term Bad means bath or spa in German and Bad Oeynhausen has developed around spa and health activities.  It is home many hospitals, including a world renown heart clinic.

Even though there were no English language TV channels at the hotel, there were still plenty of American TV shows on which had German soundtracks, including Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, and even older shows such as The Nanny were playing throughout the evening.   One of the most interesting things I ran across was the live Bocce championships on the Eurosport network.  I had never seen bocce on TV before.

I took a walk along the creek and saw an old mill (I think based on the location next to the creek and the 2 large stone wheels laying against the building.  There we also a lot of stone build walls that were about 18 inches wide and up to 3 fee tall.  Most of these were now enclosed in wire to protect them.

Also along the walk I saw a miniature golf course.  It was closed for the winter, but one of the interesting things in the course was a full size plane.  I am pretty sure it did not land there, but it was interesting to see the plane in the middle of the park.

Not too far from the hotel was a park that had a large fenced area that contained a large herd of deer.  There are probably 20 or so deer in the large enclosure and they are maintained by the locals, including a large buck who watched me the entire time I was walking along the edge of the park.  They were originally brought in for an Expo in 2000, but they were not taken out when the expo ended, and the herd has continued to expand

Behind the hotel was another park known as Kurpark, known for its beautiful gardens, large open area, fountain and the home to the G.O.P. theatre, which has ongoing shows and restaurants.  There was also a museum which had some outdoor displays of old outrigger boats.  I was not able to find out anything about the history of the boats or where they were used, but they had a few of them on display

My last night there, I just wanted a quick dinner, so we went to Stahl's Imbiss.  Imbiss is basically a small fast food stand or trailer, which may specialize in items such as bratwurst, schnitzel, spatzle (noodles) and pommes (fries).  The storefront was about 30' wide and the counter was about 4' inside the door from side to side.  There are no chairs and you stand up to eat your meal.  Stahl's only serves bratwurst and fries.  You can have you brat with mustard or ketchup with curry powder.  The fries come with ketchup or mayonnaise.  The brats are cooked on a charcoal grill while you wait.  The food was very good and I really enjoyed the local atmosphere of the place.

2011-02 Singen Germany

Ray made a quick trip to Singen and Bad Oeynhasuen in Germany.  Both these towns are relatively small.  Singen is in southern Germany just north of Swizterland.  The city has a lot of small parks and artwork/sculptures displayed around town.  There was even a large steel ping pong table in one park that utilized a steel net.  It sure would be hard to vandelize. 

In the downtown area, the streets are dedicated to pedestrians and shopping, although small delivery cars or vehicles occasionally drive down the streets.  The city had done a series of statues of bears that were customized by various businesses, much like the Snoopy statures that were done in St. Paul years ago.

On the outskirts of town is a large volcanic upheaval called Hohentwiel,  with old ruins of a fortress originally built in 914 on the very top, which is over 800' above the surrounding area.

About 40 miles west of town on Lake Constance is the Meersburg Castle.  This castle was originally built in 630.  It is amazing how old some of the original settlements are in this area,  It was open for tours, and since it was getting late, it was very dark inside.  There is some electrical lighting, but it is minimal, so some of the items and artifacts were very hard to see, and even harder to photograph since you could not use flash. 

Going up the streets to the castle, we saw neckties strung on lines between the buildings.  This was decorations for the upcoming carnival time.  One area had ties while another had material squares.  The tradition is to use linen to make the carnival flags, and the ties were just a special case.

After the castle tour we stopped and ate at Im Truben,  a small local weinkeller (wine cellar).  This wine cellar was built into the hill side and had the shape of a cave on the inside with arched walls and ceilings.  We had a light German dinner consisting of Flammkuchen.  This is dish was originally made with leftovers from the days big meal, and is similar to a thin crust pizza.  Instead of cheese, they spread schmeckt (which is somewhat similar to sour cream) on the crust and then cover with toppings.  Ours had ham and onions and was delicious. 

This is quiet season in the area so there were not many places open.  With the nearby Lake Constance, this is a very busy place in the summer.

2010-12 Merry Christmas

 

December 14, 2010

Merry Christmas,

We hope you had a good year in 2010.  Christmas is close at hand and it will be a white Christmas this year here in Minnesota as we had almost a foot and a half of snow last weekend.  I was glad I got the lights checked out and put up before the really big snows came.

Mariah (19) is a sophomore at the University of Denver.  She is studying International Business and Spanish.  She loves the school and the Denver area.  Over the summer, she worked for the City of Bloomington in the Parks and Recreation Department coordinating and conducting crafts and projects at the local city parks.  Last spring break, she made a surprise visit home for Ray and Kara’s birthdays.  She kept the secret from all of us, so it was a great surprise.  Next year she is planning on studying abroad in Mendoza, Argentina from July to December.  She is involved in the student programming board and plays club volleyball and intramurals besides keeping up on her studies.

Kara (16) is a junior at Eagan High School.  During spring break, she went to Puerto Rico with the high school band, played a couple of concerts and did a lot of site seeing.  During the spring, she was on the varsity golf team and is looking forward to playing again next spring.  During the summer she went on a mission trip to Cortez, Colorado where they helped in the local community painting houses and providing daycare.  She also played soccer and is currently playing on an indoor league. 

Hailey (14) is a freshman at Eagan High School.  She transitioned well into high school and has been able to keep up with added homework and activities.  She was on the swim team last spring, and played volleyball for Eagan this fall.  This fall and winter she is playing indoor soccer.  She does some babysitting in the neighborhood and keeps a busy social life.

Ray rode his bike for 5 days as part of the RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa during the last week of July.  Even though it doesn’t sound fun, he has a great time seeing the countryside and meeting all the great people along the way.  He also enjoys golfing, but never gets out enough.  Ray celebrated his 20^th year with Advantek this summer, and has continued to travel to Asia every couple of months.  A couple of highlights of the trips this year were going to a Taiwan professional baseball game and the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

LeAnn and Ray celebrated their 20^th anniversary with a trip to Las Vegas.  They attended performances by Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil.  They also went to the old downtown, stratosphere and walked the strip.

This summer we traveled to Florida for a summer vacation.  We stayed in the Clearwater-St. Petersburg area.  While there, we took in a Tampa Rays baseball game, celebrated LeAnn’s birthday, watched fireworks on the beach, went to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure theme parks in Orlando, then down to Fort De Soto to explore the island and snorkel.  We also spent time relaxing at the beach and by the pool.

Last weekend we celebrated Ray’s mom’s 80^th birthday with a gathering of long time friends and family.  LeAnn’s mom is still splitting time between Iowa in the summer and Arizona in the winter.

We have our tree up and decorated, and will be having Ray’s family over on Christmas Eve before heading to LeAnn’s sister’s house on Christmas Day. 

We hope you have a great Christmas season and a Happy New Year.

Email:  bloom2511@hotmail.com  

Blog: http://www.bloom2511.blogspot.com/                                                                                                       

2010-10 Halloween Pumpkins

The pumpkins are carved and the kids are coming for their candy.  Lots of great costumes on the little kids this year.  We had one abstract pumpkin and one traditional pumpkin.  Lots of work to carve through the thick pumpkins. 

2009-10 Picking Apples

On Sunday, we headed down near Webster, MN to pick some apples.  Besides LeAnn, Kara and Hailey, Ray's mom joined us.  It was a beautiful Sunday morning with bright sun and no wind.  Even though the temperature was in the 40's and 50's, it felt much warmer.

We first picked some of the apples that were right behind the barn, but there were only a couple of varieties.  We then took a tractor ride out to a couple of other orchard areas with a lot more apples to choose from.  There were over 10 different varieties to pick, both tart and sweet.  The trees were loaded with apples, so there was no issue on finding good ones. 

There has been a lot of rain down in that area, and one of the fields that had been planted with pumpkins was under water, and many of the pumpkins were floating in the water.  A second area of pumpkins was planted up by the barn, so they still had some pumpkins to sell.

2009-09 Hailey Volleyball

Hailey's 9th grade volleyball team played in a tournament at Woodbury.  There were 16 teams in the tournament, and each team was part of a pool and played the other teams in their pool.  Eagan won their pool, so they advanced to the championship bracket, and by doing so got to play on the varsity court.  Unfortunately, they lost in the championship round, but did come in 3rd based on their pool play.  It was a fun day watching all the games and seeing how well they are doing.

2010-09 Taipei

While in Taipei in early September, Ray went to a CPBL (Chinese Professional Baseball League) game at Tianmu baseball stadium.  There are only 4 teams in the league, and they do not have a home field.  They rotate playing each other in about 10 different stadiums around Taiwan.  There are 2 stadiums in Taipei City.

Upon arriving at the stadium, you go to the ticket window and purchase your tickets based on who you will be cheering for. so all the fans for a particular team sit on the same side of the field.  There are seats for about 12,000 fans and a small upper deck between the dugouts behind home plate.  I had the choice between the Elephants and the Bulls, and I chose the Elephants, which on this night had the largest crowd

I sat in the 9th row behind 1st base.  When I got to my seats, I discovered the various impediments to clearly watching the game.  There was a large speaker on top of the dugout that partially blocked my view of the pitchers mound.  This was used by a roving cheer leader with a wireless mic to lead various cheers, chants and songs.  A large fence ran from the dugout to the outfield, and one of the posts blocked my view of first base.  Despite this, I could move my head around enough to catch the action.  If I ever go again, I will try some seats in the upper deck.

Whenever your team is at bat, the cheers are non-stop.  Each player has his own song they play for his at bat, and a couple of them were Popeye the Sailor Man and I've been working on the railroad.  In between hitters, large oversize team flags are waived on top of the dugout.  The elephant mascot also walked up and won the aisle and had his picture taken with all the kids and babies.

It ended up that the family next to me were Taiwanese nationals who were visiting from California (Dodger fans) and it was their first game too.  The boys enjoyed the game and the hot dogs.

After every odd inning, they groomed the field, but then after the fifth inning, the game stopped.  It was a 10 minute intermission and everyone went up and got food and drink.  The players warmed up again and they resumed.  The Elephants won in the bottom of the 9th.  They will play a maximum of 3 extra innings, so some games do end in a tie.

All the singing and chanting made for a fun evening at the ballpark.

The next day Ray went to the Taipei Zoo and took a gondola ride up to the Maokong Tea area.  The tea area is famous for the tea that is grown there and there are many tea houses and cafes.  The gondola ride took many hours off the trip to this area when the only way up was by road.

Ray hiked down to the a small river that was filled with rocks with many small potholes in them caused by the movement of the water.  On the way, he heard a group of people speaking English and it ended up it was 3 Americans and a German who were over here teaching and studying.  He hiked with them for a while and also ate lunch with them at one of the cafe's overlooking Taipei City and the Maokong valley.

The trail was very steep and some of the sections had stairs, but the steps were so narrow, it made it difficult to use them, especially going down.  Most of the trail did not have steps and had some very steep parts.  It was a little cooler since you weren't in the sun, but it also reduced the breeze that could help cool you down.

The second stop on the gondola ride was at Zhinan temple.  This was a large temple built on the side of the hill.  The dragon pot out front was for burning incense.  There was another trail down to some additional benches and meditation areas.

The zoo was similar to the Minnesota zoo in size and format.  Animals were housed both in walk through buildings and also out in open areas that you walked between.  Some of the more exotic animals included koalas and pandas.

Outside the zoo was a small fountain that had a dancing waters and sound show every hour.  I happened to be at the fountain during one of the shows.  They have 9 different songs set up that the randomly group in sets of 3 throughout the day.