We're UP!!!

So we finally decided to start a blog... and we backdated some of the posts since we're slacking on the updates. Just to recap....we got here on May 1st. It took about a month before we found an apartment and got comfortable with the area. Our goal over here is to travel through as much of Europe as possible. We've had quite an adventurous 3 months so far. We've traveled to lots of places so far, and we've just about finished the pictures for all of these places:

Basel, Switzerland to visit Andrea's Aunt and Uncle
Milan, Italy to visit Murjani, our old roommate
Köblenz, Germany
Lake Bodensee (Meersburg)
Black Forest (Triberg)
Hohenzollern Castle
Köln, Germany
Amsterdam
Munich, hanging out with Steve, Nic and Laura
Malta

Andrea just finished up an eight-week immersion course to learn German. She tries to practice and learn more German in between hanging out with her many girlfriends over here...

August brings a month long visit from Audrey. And boy do we have lots of travels planned. So stay tuned and we'll keep you posted. Hope all of you are doing well and we look forward to sharing our adventures with you.

Much love,
Brendan and Andrea

München with the boys!

So after lots of planning... Steve finally got the go for his European business trip that will take him to Verona, Italy... Paris and Brussels.. but first the boys will meet up in Munich...

Nic and Laura caught a flight down from London and then Nic, Laura Andrea and I all drove over to München to meet Steve...Because we ALL know that when Brendan, Nic and Steve get together... NOTHING good ever happens ;) We actually all behaved ourselves this weekend, and Steve was a trooper living on probably 2-3 hours of sleep after taking the red-eye from Philly into Munich.

We attempted to do some sightseeing, but the rain didn't want to allow that... so instead we ended up at the Hofbräuhaus... And what do the three of us do once we get GINORMOUS beers??? We decide to have a chugging contest... yes those beers are HUGE. Since Steve had already drank a little bit more of his, Nic and I got a slight head start... and the winner was supposed to get below the 'H' on the beer mug...

After having our 'manly' race of the day, we finished up our beers... had a nice dinner and relaxed with the locals in a truly German pub. A few beers later, and a few squabbles with the German Frau (waitress) we headed back to the hotel and passed out...

We then saw Steve off onto his train the next morning, and the original four drove back to Stuttgart so Nic and Laura could see our apartment. They had a flight around 6 pm, and it was about an hour drive to the airport, so we left around 3:00 just to be safe and get there with enough time. Well, we ALL forgot that it is summer in Germany and there are just STAUs EVERYWHERE! So Andrea had opted to stay home (probably for the best... keep reading) and Nic, Laura and I are now watching the clock tick, and the speedometer reading about 10 mph. *!$%! This was not in the plans...

Eventually we had accepted the fact that Nic and Laura were not going to make their flight... and we're almost ready to turn back to Stuttgart and then deal with getting them home the next day, when the stau clears. GREAT! We now have something like 28 minutes to go 45 miles, but luckily for us we were on the unrestricted part of the Autobahn (yes, not all of it unrestricted). This is the part where Andrea would NOT have approved of the driving...

Needless to say, Nic and Laura got to the airport and checked in 2 minutes before check-in closed... and the three of us have quite a thrill to chuckle about now.