Germany Part 2 - the Rhine Valley, Burg Rhinefels

Ok, get ready, because for the rest of the trip we were camera (or rather iphone camera) happy and we took a TON of pictures!  After Nurburg we drove down to the tiny town of St. Goar along the famous Rhine River.  This area of the Rhine is referred to as the Romantic Rhine because of the many vineyards and castles (this area has 40 something castles along a 20 mile stretch and has been named a UNESCO World Heritage site), so we were sure to appropriately hit up a handful of castles and drink a lot of Riesling! 

While in St. Goar we actually stayed in an apartment rental that I'd HIGHLY recommend - the owners Gabi and Wolfgang were incredibly friendly (when we complimented the delicious scent of a dinner they were cooking, Gabi actually ran down to grab us a couple of samples to taste!) and a great source of information on the region.  All of our dinners were at restaurants they recommended and all of them were delicious!  On our first day we got a bit of a late start since S finally took the opportunity to recover from his jet lag (now that the sweet siren's song of Nurburgring wasn't keeping his adrenaline pumping...)  After a leisurely morning we got lost and then proceeded to walk down the steepest hill ever to the town's resident castle, Burg Rheinfels.

 

 

Burg Rheinfels is a castle in ruins right on a small cliff overlooking the Rhine.  It was a gorgeous view (our first of the Rhine River actually!) and the castle itself was a lot of fun because we could wander around the entire thing at our own will. 

There was no tour, just a map and signs that took you through the underground tunnels, to the "dungeon", through a cavernous hall, up to the top of a tower overlooking the river, and all around the now overgrown interior.  We felt like kids in our own secret hide out!

There were some beautiful views of the Rhine Valley from the castle too.  The leaves had just started changing colors and I was SO excited to get to experience autumn!

 

And this is the view from the top tower that we climbed too.  The Rhine River is still an incredibly busy waterway.  There were cruise ships and barges constantly floating by.  

 

Eventually we made our way down and then proceeded to ravenously consume Italian food in the castle's restaurant (we didn't want to overdo it on German food) as we'd worked up quite an appetite with all of our climbing and exploring!

After Burg Rheinfels, we headed down into the "downtown" tourist area of St. Goar to look at shops filled with cuckoo clocks, beer steins, and pretzels.  We eventually had to then make our way BACK UP the incredibly steep hill to the apartment.  It was ridiculously tough (I think the sign said it had a grade of 17) and we continuously referred to all strenuous activity after that as "not that bad compared to the hill in St. Goar".  For dinner that night we drove to the edge of town for some mushroom slathered schnitzel with spaetzel (an egg noodle that is everywhere in Germany and that I of course couldn't eat...).  S was a little less than thrilled with the proliferation of wine at every restaruant around here (he wanted some German beer!!!), but K and I were thrilled - it was delicious!

Ok, that's a pretty long post.  I'll come back tomorrow with the pictures from day 2 in the Rhine Valley!

Whoops! And Germany Part 1 - Nurburgring!

Yeah, so I skipped a week when I promised to post.  Not off to a good re-start.  I was going to post Halloween pictures, but the only ones I've seen with me in them are either blurry or not flattering.  I'll contact some more friends to dig up a good one.  In the meantime, here's the start of the Germany pictures that I promised!

We flew into Frankfurt on Saturday, October 5, got our luggage and rental car, and immediately hit the road to head to Nurburg, home of the Nurburgring racetrack!  This was obviously an S request since he's so into cars, but it was definitely an interesting experience for K and I as well!  When we got to our hotel, K and I crashed hard due to jet lag, but S was so hyped up on adrenaline that he went out to meet a friend of a friend who is part of a German Corvette club.  We met up with our new friends again for dinner (it was nice to get a lay of the land and basic food translation from someone who spoke English!) and then joined up with the rest of the Corvette club afterwards at a Discotheque!  We were a little too exhausted to boogie down, but we did have a good time!  Also, it turns out that there isn't really any good German pop music, so all of the radio stations and clubs play American music!  We heard a LOT of American Top 40....

The next morning we finally hit up the ring!  S took 2 laps around the ring on his own in our rental car (a pretty nice BMW 535 (in the background of the first picture).  We got passed left and right by porches and corvettes and sporty little souped up cars, but S was in his element - he actually got to drive on this famous 14 mile long race track!

We also had fun oogling all of the cars that were parked between laps (every lap there are anywhere from 2-4 minor/major accidents on the track - crazy daredevil motorcycles or cars overheating, cars taking a curve too fast and spinning, etc - and so all cars were stopped for about 30-60 minutes between laps for clean up crews to come through). 

We met up with the guys from the Corvette club again for lunch and then afterwards S went back onto the track as a passenger in one of the 'vettes for 2 ridiculously fast and thrilling laps (it was the TRUE Nurburgring experience) while K and I hit up some shops for souvenirs (I'm a total foodie nerd and got a cookie cutter in the shape of the ring....).  That evening after S rejoined us we set off for part 2 of our trip in the Rhine Valley....

Happy Halloween! And I'm back!

Well, first of all - Happy Halloween!!!  It's one of my favorite holidays and I can't wait to share details of my (3!) costumes this year!

Second of all, I'm so sorry for the two months of radio blog silence!!!  I have a couple of excuses, but only one of them is really a good excuse.  It all started back on Labor Day weekend when my 3 day weekend was shortened into a 2 day one by the failure of the hardware that I'm lead for on-orbit.  Madness ensued and for the next 2 weeks I was busy beyond belief at work and either busy or passed out when I got home.  Free time for blog posts was a losing battle when compared to sleep or just enjoying a couple of hours of my day with S.  Finally my hardware was replaced and things gradually became normal over the next week.  Ok, so that's 3 weeks accounted for and while I could have posted, I think most of you can understand why I didn't.

This was followed by 2 weeks where I wasn't overwhelmingly busy, but I was still extremely exhausted and I went into "easy"mode.  I just wanted to relax and enjoy myself.  I also spend part of that time preparing for vacation - you know, calling credit card companies, booking hotels, set up itineraries, packing, etc.  This is followed by my good excuse: I was in Europe!

Trust me, there are many pictures that will follow!  S and I went to Germany for 2 weeks with our good friend K, including a side trip to Salzburg, Austria and Prague.  It was amazing.  It had been 4 years since I'd been on any kind of extended vacation, so it was long overdue.  We only had spotty internet while we were over there and who wants to spend time writing blog posts instead of enjoying Germany?!?

So now I'm back.  A thousand apologies and I'll try to keep back up with things.  Pictures of my Halloween costumes and trip are coming soon...

(image from here)

It Happens in 3s

Sorry for the radio (blog?) silence this week, but it's been a doozy.  The hardware I'm in charge of for work failed on orbit on Saturday, so this week at work has been insane.  I worked a little over 5 hours of overtime on Saturday, and I've been completely totally packed schedule-wise all day, every day, since Tuesday trying to troubleshoot, update management, and prepare for the faulty part to be removed and replaced sometime in the next week.  All on top of my regular work.

But that's not all - yesterday I got a double dose of more bad news in the form of a pinched nerve/muscle in my neck and my cat deciding that she didn't want to use the litter box anymore (because I really wanted to be stressed outside of work too).  So I'm on an acupuncture and methol patch regiment, she's started up her kitty prozac prescription again, and everyone is just overall medicated and frazzled....

I'll try to start posting regularly again when things calm down around here.  In the meantime, here's to a (hopefully) enjoyable, relaxing weekend....

(pictures from here, here, and here)

Enjoy Your Long Weekend!

Last night S and I finished up our Houston Restaurant Weeks adventures with a trip to The Oceanaire with some friends.  Food was tasty (and a great deal, some of the entrees alone cost more than the $35 restaurant weeks deal!) and the company was fantastic.  After dinner we weren't quite ready for the night to end so we headed a bit further down the street to get some prohibition era cocktails at the Galleria.  In true speakeasy fashion, they had a "hidden" doorway behind a faux wall.  It wasn't the fact that the doorway was hidden that tickled my fancy though, it was the text that graced the wall that had me in stitches (see above).  I'm obsessed!

As for the upcoming weekend, S and I are planning to picnic tonight while we see a touring Chinese acrobat troupe at Miller's Outdoor Theater.  Tomorrow is a "get stuff done" day, which for S involves working on his car and for me will entail a trip to Canino Market and Revival Market before cooking up a storm.  I'm SO excited to make this squash blossom soup again, and I'm planning to try some new pickle recipes!  Sunday is a fun day - brunch somewhere followed by trips to places we've been wanting to go, but haven't had time for.  And Monday is a home improvement day - we're hoping to finally get the movie room at S's house to a functional state.  And best of all - we're going to sleep in - every day for 3 days!!!!

Do you have any fun plans for the long weekend? Some travelling maybe?  We would have traveled somewhere, but I'm on call for work all weekend... 

Drowning in Space

It always felt like there was more urgency to shuttle missions compared to the "leisurely" life of an ISS astronaut.  Don't get me wrong, they do a LOT of work up there.  But there aren't as many emergencies in the day to day life on ISS as there were during a shuttle mission.  And that lack of urgency can sometimes make us forget how important our jobs are.

A couple of weeks ago two astronauts fastened themselves into space suits and floated out of the ISS airlock into the void of space for US EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) #23.  Luca Parmitano is the European Space Agency's astronaut from Italy and Chris Cassidy of NASA were making their way to the station for repairs to their power system.    During the EVA Luca noted rising levels of water in his helmet and the EVA came to an emergency halt.  Luca details the (what I would consider to be terrifying) experience in his blog, here. 

When something like this happens, it reminds everyone here at NASA and Boeing how important our jobs are.  While my team isn't responsible for the EVA suits, we are responsible for the water and air of the life support systems and so we've been tied in to some of the efforts to troubleshoot the suit.  Here's the video of what happened:

   
(top image from NASA)

Rough Week

It's only Tuesday, and I'm already having a rough week.  I'm on console this week, so naturally everything else at work is pretty crazy too.  Additionally, I had a fun incident this morning when I got into my car and saw my tire pressure sensor light blinking.  My tire wasn't flat, but it was halfway there, turning my morning trip to work into a stressful situation.  S filled the tire back up with air during lunch and I was able to get it to the mechanic for a patch.  There was more to it and I've now had a headache all day as a result.  Luckily I'm headed into town tonight for another Houston Restaurant Weeks adventure, this time to Soma Sushi.  Hopefully some good food will help me destress!

(gif from here)

Have A Magical Weekend

Ah, the week has finally come to an end.  Looking forward to starting my weekend out shortly.  After a lovely Houston Restaurant Weeks experience last night with friends at RDG - Bar Annie, S and I are venturing back out again tonight for the smorgasbord experience that Max's Wine Dive is offering.  I'm so excited for truffled mac and cheese that I can't even stand it.  Tomorrow I think we're going to hit up James Coney Island for the specialty collaboration hot dog that was created by the owner/chef of our favorite eatery, Eatsie Boys.  I'm not normally a hot dog fan, but Eatsie Boys hasn't steered us wrong yet!  Our weekend continues with a Saturday afternoon in Galveston for St. Arnold's pub crawl (we get to drink Elissa the beer while standing next to ELISSA the ship!) and then a cook out/pool party at a friend's house on Sunday.  Really looking forward to hanging out with all of my friends!!! Also finally going to book the hotels for our Germany trip on Sunday as well - it's only just over a month away!

(picture from here)