As many of you already know, I spent a month in America. Flo came with for the last 10 days of it. I went to go help my uncle and my best friend prepare for their wedding. (Don’t worry, my uncle isn’t a cradle robber: my best friend is somewhat older than I am.) I was the matron of honor, so there was plenty for me to do. Since we’ve returned to Germany, we’ve had other things going on, so here is the blog entry in sections. You can skip to whichever part you want to read and clicking on one of the pictures will take you to that gallery.

1. Dairy Queen Surprise Party

2. Esposito Wedding

3. Vienna

4. Updated Apartment Photos

1. Dairy Queen Surprise Party
For their 30th birthdays, Bonnie had this fabulous idea of surprising our husbands with a party at the Dairy Queen. Since neither of their birthdays are in June, I think we actually managed to surprise them, as well. They knew that something was going on, but not what. They had friends and family from the area show up, which was fantastic. Also, Bonnie’s parents came up from Virginia for the weekend (as if they need an excuse to come see their first grandbaby again) and friends of ours, Geoff and Calun with their son Judah, came up from Pennsylvania. We hadn’t seen them in over three years, so that was also fabulous. The boys got to wear funny party hats (thanks Mom!) and open some presents. It was terribly hot that day, so Blizzards were just right for the occasion. Thanks to everybody who came and made our men feel loved.

2. Esposito Wedding
Well, this is a wedding we’ve all been waiting a long time for. We had a lot of fun getting ready for it, even though there was a lot to do, and then we had a lot of fun partying down. I have to say, the people in our circle in America really know how to enjoy a party. They dance and laugh and ham it up like there’s no tomorrow and that is so much better than the weddings and parties where everyone is self-conscious. I did throw a bridal shower for Audrey, but somehow I don’t have any photos of it. Maybe someone can send me some? The shower was fun. We had really yummy food – thanks everyone who pitched in! – and beautiful decorations – thanks a lot deco team! – and lovely atmosphere – thanks to the guests who didn’t make Aud too nervous!. And I think the most fun thing was that we had a competition to make a bridal gown out of toilet paper. Dang, I wish I had pics of that to show you all. Anyway, so that was a good time. The wedding itself had great food (mmmm, ribs) and was in a beautiful building on the Chatham Fairgrounds. (The building we used is in the first two pictures on the site.) It rained like heck that day. Luckily I only had to go potty twice, because you had to clump across the field to get to the bathrooms. I survived. My shoes are a little worse for the wear, but no problem. The bride and groom did a sexy cha-cha for their first dance, there were only two or three times where the bustle didn’t hold up properly (isn’t there one at every wedding?) and a whole group of us danced the entire Thriller dance from Michael Jackson! May he rest in peace. I know, I know, these aren’t a lot of details, but it’s really hard to cram three weeks into a little blog entry. Maybe I should consider updating the blog while I’m away, if I’m going to be away for so long… Hm. I’ll think about it. Oh, by the way, there are other pictures from America in with the wedding pictures and for some reason, they’re all out of order right now. Flo has to fix it. Sorry. Also, don’t be surprised if there are a ton of my nephew. I’m not too in love with him or anything.

I added some pics of the bridal shower, in case you didn’t make it to that shindig.

3. Vienna
After we came back from America, we spent two days doing six loads of laundry and then we left for Austria. Someone from our church was getting married to an Austrian fellow and we’d been invited. We thought when we have to drive six hours to Graz anyway, we may as well go a little bit out of the way and stop by in Vienna. We had one and a half days in Vienna and I have to say, it is definitely a city I want to go back to and spend more time in. There was simply soooo much to see and do and it was all beautiful. It was, by the way, recently voted the “most livable city” in the world. Huh. Who knew people rate such things? Anyway, here’s my overall impression of Vienna, and then I’ll go into detail of what we saw: Vienna largely escaped being ruined in the war, so there are still many grand, old buildings standing. (Our hotel room, for instance, had massively high ceilings, which I’m a total sucker for. It was also very affordable and only 15 minutes walk from the heart of downtown.) It seemed like at every turn we saw a giant park, extremely well manicured and public to boot. The cultural offerings in Vienna are out of this world – theater, opera, music of all sorts, 100-year old restaurants, everything from label and boutique to gimmicky tourist shopping, a whole museum quarter and a giant ferris wheel to boot! There is simply so much history in the arts in connection with this city and they really live it up. There is also a beautiful cathedral, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and a Spanish Riding School (I know, like, Spanish school in Austria??) and the Danube River flowing through the city. In fact, you can take a boat trip across the river and go to Bratislava, which is the capital of Slovakia. I had no idea they were that close. Obviously we didn’t have time to do all that. We went in the butterfly house and in one of Beethoven’s apartments and in the Kunsthaus Wien, which is a museum housing mainly works by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. I’d never heard of him and so that was very interesting. Otherwise, we just sort of walked around and tried to take everything in. It was a lot of fun and then the wedding in Graz was good too. Much more relaxing than in America, as I was simply a guest. Flo played some keyboard during the ceremony, but that was it for him too. So that’s that!

4. Updated Apartment Photos
While I was in America, I tried to show Kathy Pooler what our apartment looks like and realized we only have photos from when we first signed the rental agreement! That means, pictures of bare, ugly walls and floors. So, I took some and put them up here so those of you who haven’t been here (yet) can see how we live.