Birthdays

I realize that I am nearly a month late in posting this, but better late than never, right? So happy birthday, Brett! Poor Brett has spent his last two birthday's in foreign countries without much fanfare, but hopefully next year we will be in the U.S. where at the very least he can have a delicious birthday burrito. Here are just a few of the many things that I love about the birthday boy (and the photos don't necessarily correspond, I just wanted to add some photos of Brett):

1. Before we got married, I wasn't much of a "touchy-feely" person. Turns out I was just holding all of my touching in for one specific person, and he lets me squeeze and hug him as much as I want even though I think he probably gets sick of it sometimes.

2. We've spent a lot of time apart in our marriage, and I know it sounds strange, but I'm actually happy to know that it's difficult for him too. Sometimes I think he doesn't need me as much as I need him but then he sends me emails like this: "I just miss you so much and can't wait to get back home to you. Home is wherever my Lindsey is." (I hope he doesn't mind that I shared that...)

3. He can make me laugh even when I'm trying so hard to be mad at him. For example: I was having a bad day a while back and the house was a mess and I was mad at him for not automatically noticing how messy it was and cleaning it up (we women are crazy sometimes, I know). He could tell that I was upset, but he didn't know what to do. So I start angrily cleaning only to look over and see Brett frantically shuffling some papers and things around trying his hardest to look busy. He was too funny and cute to stay mad at.

4. Even though there are some things that I watch that he absolutely loathes (like Gilmore Girls and What I Like About You) he will let me watch them without complaint. He even sat down and had a Veronica Mars marathon with me one time.

5. He is always willing to help other people around him. This includes small things like holding doors open for people, giving people directions, or helping a woman with her luggage, to other bigger things like helping people move. Somehow every time we go home to AZ there is someone moving in his parent's Ward. He's always willing to go and help them.

6. Sometimes I make fun of him for it, but I actually love that he is a big nerd. I don't claim to understand some of the things he is studying in school, but I know that he has a passion for them and I know he will be great at applying his knowledge in the future. He's so smart! I hope our kids get his brains.

7. He always tells me I'm pretty. (I know it's vain, but what girl doesn't like to hear that?) Even though I sometimes spend entire days in my sweats with no makeup on and greasy hair, he still tells me I'm pretty.

8. I know that he would do anything for me.

9. He is incredibly self disciplined. The way that he continues to work on his language skills amazes me. Arabic is an especially tough language because to be fluent you have to know so many more words than you would in English. So he continues to work at it on his own every day.

10. I had a dream a few weeks ago that we had a little baby girl and she had Brett's green, squinty eyes. I love his eyes, especially when he smiles.



I will stop there, but there are so many other things that I love and adore about Brett.


And in other "birthday" news... I am due on December 12, which also happens to be Brett's graduation day. So that should be fun. At this point it looks like I will be having the baby in California because I don't really know how else to work the insurance stuff. At least now I know what I am getting Brett for a graduation present! :) Or I guess if the baby is late, he or she can be a Christmas present. Hopefully at our next appointment (on July 8th) we will be able to find out the sex of the baby, but we'll see. I'm still having the heartburn ickyness, but other than that, things seem to be OK. The baby also seems to be trying to make his or herself known by way of a bump. Maybe one day I'll take some pictures, or maybe I'll just wait to surprise you all when I get home. Then I'll really look like I have a little something going on.

Hope all is well in the U.S. We are both pretty excited to come home in about 40 days! (Yes, I'm counting the days) It's been a wonderful experience here, but I'm just about ready to come home. That's all for now!

Pea Pod updates

Well since there has been a request for more baby news and I only aim to please, here's what I got:
First things first, is forgetfulness a part of pregnancy? You know how they (they being Dr. Ryuta Kawashima of Nintendo DS' Brain Age) say that when you are concentrating with intense focus, your brain will shut down access to senses you aren't using? Well, I think that my brain has shut off the "memory" function so as to focus on the Build-A-Bear workshop going on in my stomach. Secondly, I feel very blessed to have not experienced the throwing up part of pregnancy, however, heartburn has come at me full-force. Here in Austria the pharmacies don't allow you to just stroll willy-nilly around until you find the medicine you need, you have to actually speak to a pharmacist every time you go in. So the other day I tried to ask for Tums or something for heartburn, but I don't think she understood me. The good news is Brett works for a UN organization that has an area complete with American type things, like cheddar cheese and Tums, only the latter of which I hope to consume. Thirdly, I went to get my blood tests done last week and although the nurse who took my blood didn't speak English, I think we got along just fine. She would gesture, I would nod, and really, getting your blood drawn is pretty straight forward, assuming that the nurse knows what she's doing. Unfortunately when it came time for my results, there was no one to gesture, nod, or speak broken English to me. So basically I have a piece of paper that indicates I'm low in 2 areas, but which ones, who knows? I have another appointment with my doctor at the beginning of June, so hopefully she will make sense of things for me.

In other related news, Austria is a hard place to be when you're sense of smell is heightened. Brett said that it's like I have a super power or something, but I can tell you there's nothing super about getting on the subway with a bunch of stinky people practically breathing on you. Why is deoderant still not hip here? Oh well. I seriously spend most of my time at home hanging out, watching cheesy movies, and working. It's a nice set up.

My last thought is that I'm really glad that everyone says I'm really going to love my own kids. I didn't grow up playing with dolls, and the idea of having kids was one that took a while to grow on me. I wasn't the type of girl that gushed over babies or wanted to hold every one that I saw. Don't get me wrong, I love my nieces and nephews and think my friends have some of the cutest kids ever, but the idea of having my own used to really freak me out. I think just like marriage, having kids is a very personal thing and there is no specific time/age to do said things that works for everyone. But for me and Brett, we know that this is the right time and that everything will work out.

To keep from having a blog with no pictures, here are a couple:
Me and my dad when my parents came to visit:


Me and Brett at his office:

Oh and FYI, I'm almost 12 weeks along. That's what everyone really wants to know, right?

Budapest

Firstly, and most importantly, Lindsey is doing well. She has not been vomiting, nor attempting to claw my eyes out, but we still have a few months of pregnancy to go. She will tell you that being away from American restaurants is excruciatingly difficult during this critical period of pregnancy. Unfortunately Chipotle, Cafe Rio, Pizza Hut, Rumbi and Little Caesar's are unavailable.

We had an ultrasound over a week ago and saw our baby. By analyzing the pulsing sounds and images of the little heart, we were able to confirm that our firstborn's heart indeed beats for America. So all is well and we found a very good doctor who speaks perfect English. She also worked in the US for quite a long time as an OB/GYN.

Now, what can be said about Budapest? It is located in Hungary, which is another one of those former Soviet states. It is the third former Soviet country that we have visited since our arrival in Europe over three months ago. Much like Slovakia, Hungary has some visible lasting affects from communism. Not least among these is the feeling that if someone sneezes too hard, several blocks of rickety old buildings will come tumbling to the ground.

One thing that was surprising to see was the people in Budapest - the actual Hungarians. We didn't really know what to expect to see once we arrived. We figured it would have been similar to Bratislava where we were greeted at the train station by a pregnant, gollum-esque woman who was enjoying what was probably one of many cigarettes during her day.

I had assumed all Hungarians were gnarled old women with scarves on their heads and whose knobby knuckles protruded as they clutched crooked walking sticks (needless to say we decided well in advance not to accept any shiny apples from strangers). But despite their super weird language, Hungarians are quite excellent and beautiful people as far as we can tell.

One quick interjection/observation before we continue with this thing. This one is about Europe in general. When we return from our little Euro excursions, people often ask what the place is like and what we saw when we were there. We have noticed that usually no matter what city we visited, our answer to this question is generally the same. It goes like this: "It was fun, there's really cool old architecture, we went to a castle, we saw a cathedral, and we ate (name of local cuisine) at the banks of the (name of river).

Now, don't misunderstand. Europe is not necessarily boring, but we have noticed that each city has the same basic category of sights to be taken in. Furthermore, if any city has been an exception (well, that's not exactly the right word... how about 'enhancement') to this, it has been London. London has all the aforementioned and much, much more. Anyway, that's just an observation. Back to Budapest.

The Andersons were with us on this excursion. They came to Vienna to visit us and to travel around a bit. They also came with peanut butter M&Ms and Costco trail mix. Lindsey and our little embryo were equally thrilled. We stayed at a luxury hotel on the banks of the Danube (courtesy of the Andersons) and took in every reasonable sight in the town. The highlights of which were, get ready, St Stephen's Cathedral, the castle district, and the architecture of the parliament building. All of which are pictured here:






We're glad to be back in Vienna and can't believe our time here is more than half way finished. There is still so much we want to see in the next 2.5 months. But if we can manage to see Paris and nothing else between now and when we go, we'll call it good.

The Pitter-Patter of a little Lindsey or Brett

Well first of all, Brett and I have now been married for four years! Can you believe it? I certainly can't. Time really does fly by. Before we got married, I honestly didn't know exactly what to expect (does anyone really?). My mom made sure to let me know that marriage was not always easy, but I still didn't know how hard it could sometimes be. Fortunately along with all the struggles and difficult times come wonderful, fun, and amazing times. I am so grateful to be married to Brett. He never ceases to amaze me with how smart, funny, and sweet he is. It's also nice that he is so willing to put up with me. We've seen a lot together over these four years and we've grown so close. I can't imagine my life without him.

Now, as you may have heard or guessed by the title of this blog, we recently discovered I'm pregnant. I had been feeling sick since we got back from London and I had missed my period (sorry for the personal detail), which actually isn't that uncommon, but I just had a feeling that something was different this time. So I went and got a pregnancy test (without telling Brett). The test that I got was all in German and it was a digital test that said Schwanger (pregnant) or Nicht Schwanger (not pregnant) instead of the little +/- or whatever. After I waited that ridiculously long 3 minutes, it said schwanger and I had a momentary freak out by myself in the bathroom before I came into the bedroom to tell Brett. When I first walked in, I just stared at him not knowing exactly what to say. Then he said, "what? what's going on?" I replied, "I'm schwanger!" Of course he didn't know what I meant, so I said, "I'm pregnant." He didn't believe me at first and kept saying "no you're not." Actually, here's a better representation of his reaction to the news:


So I brought in the test to show it to him.


(This picture is actually from the second test that Brett wanted me to take, and as you'll notice it says that I'm at least 3+ weeks along)

Then we both freaked out for a while. We're excited, but we were also caught off guard as we were not planning this at all. We just found a doctor so I have an appointment in about a week, so I'll be able to get a better idea of all those questions that people want to know, like "how far along are you?" and "when are you due?" I did one of those online things that is supposed to calculate your due date and it said Dec. 12, but I don't know about that.... so we'll see. I feel sick pretty much all day long, but I haven't thrown up yet, so I guess that's good. One thing that is super annoying is that I keep craving foods from restaurants that don't exist here. I get so hungry, but I only want certain things... things that I can't have. Oh well. I'll try not to think about Cafe Rio, Chipotle, the Euro Cafe, Joe's Real BBQ or the Mint Thai. Dang it.

In conclusion, I bought some Popsicles the other day only to discover that one of them came with a complimentary wood shard. Talk about a lawsuit waiting to happen! What a tasty lawsuit though.

Merry Old London

Lindsey here. Brett said he's done with his blogging duties for a while. So I guess you'll have to live with my less-funny, probably less frequent blogs from here on out. Sorry.

Here in Europe they actually take time off from work to celebrate Easter. So Brett had a Friday and Monday off of work, so obviously we decided he should also take the Wednesday and Thursday before that off so that we could go to London. The cheapest flights we found were out of Bratislava, if you're unfamiliar with the place, see our previous post. The airline is called Ryanair and it comes complete with no seating arrangements and some of the classiest Europeans you'll find. You know the types... just imagine that Europe had Wal Mart, that's where you'd find all of these people. You know they type... They're not intimidated by lines, because they don't stand in them. And they are not afraid to run or push you out of the way for a better deal, or in this case a better seat or to be one step ahead of you getting off the plane.

After a long and gross day of buses, planes, and "tubes" as they call them in London, we finally arrived at our hotel in London. After we got settled in, we went to check out the City and grab something to eat. We were fortunate to arrive on a very sunny day and this was literally the first thing we saw once we got into the city via Westminster station:



Then we went in search of food. London is a little pricy and we didn't know where anything was so we ended up eating at McDonald's. Before that, I honestly can't remember the last time I ate at a McDonald's. For some reason I think that a lot of American's who opt to not eat at McDonald's in the states end up eating it in foreign countries though, so whatever.

We covered a lot of ground that first day. Here are some pictures:


That night the wireless internet at our hotel wasn't working and I had a deadline and Brett had to get a hold of his friend (we were supposed to be meeting up with her the next day). So we took our little laptop and set out in search of an internet cafe. Now, first let me say that we were staying on the outskirts of town (much cheaper that way) and secondly, London is not as big on internet cafe's apparently. So after much searching and walking, we ended up at McDonald's for a second time. Who ever would have guessed we'd eat there twice in one day? Well, they were the only place with wireless internet, so we were grateful.

The next day we wandered around the city some more and then met up with Brett's friend, Nicola, for lunch. She's a Londoner who was attending the Monterey Institute and who also spent last summer in Syria. So this was actually the third country we've seen her in. After lunch we wandered around some more and checked out some shops. That was pretty much that day.

The next day we decided we were going to do our "Hop on/Hop off" tour. Basically they are these buses that drive around and make stops at all the popular tourist spots. So you can get on and off at any time. It's a pretty sweet deal. A favorite on this day was the Tower of London. It's a castle on the shores of the Thames. It's more famous as the place where greats like Ann Boleyn and William Wallace were executed. Speaking of that Boleyn girl, they had a Henry VIII exhibit going on at the time. Henry the 8th was an all around gross person. Here's a taste of the tower he once occupied:


While we were there, one of our objectives was for Brett to eat bangers and mash and fish & chips. Well, we at least accomplished half of that objective by getting him the fish & chips. And I ate all the salt & vinegar chips I could handle.

This blog is starting to get long, so I'll try to wrap things up...
Basically we saw all we could including Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery (complete with some actual Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Picasso paintings), the London Eye, the Imperial War Museum, Abbey Road, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, some of the beautiful parks, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some other things... But we walked till our feet hurt every day and I even talked Brett into seeing a show. Our last night there we went and saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was actually really awesome and I think Brett even liked it. :)

You can a better feel for the whole experience by checking out our 150+ pictures here.

We left Sunday morning ridiculously early and took Monday to recuperate from the trip. In conclusion, it was awesome and I highly suggest going.

Tombstones and Bleeding Hearts for Bratislava

We wish to inform you that since our last post, the weather has taken an extreme turn for the awesome-er. This has exponentially increased our ability to be tourists. So our obvious first tourist stop when the weather started getting cheery - was the cemetery. The Vienna central cemetery boasts some of the most famous (and infamous) corpses of all time. The main reason we were interested in going was to reconnect with our classy roots by paying respect to Beethoven. Obviously the best way to show respect for the dead is to physically embrace their headstone.



This is actually Ludwig's second tomb. His body was moved there in 1888 along with composer Mr Franz Schubert. I'll bet they're really glad that they are homies 4 life, and 4 death. They now share a quiet little corner of the cemetery with other classical cats like Brahms and Falco. But somehow I don't feel like Falco belongs in this group. What do you think?



Other notables in the cemetery include basically every statesman from Austria, as well as the professor who rejected Hitler's art school application thus forcing America to use nuclear weapons against Japan (non sequitur stolen from a Brian Regan joke). All in all it was a fun day thanks to some German friends who invited us along for the afternoon. Ze Germans were especially helpful when a nice Austrian tour guide began pointing out (in his native language) the final resting places of interesting people. Two months in this country really has not done wonders for our German language ability. We were glad to have willing translators.

Our gloomy adventures continued yesterday when we visited the former Soviet land of Slovakia. Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is a mere 60km from Vienna. Even though we had already visited the former Soviet Union once (Czech Republic), this was the first time we really experienced the remnants of communism. The city is basically divided by the Danube river. On the west side of the river is the beautiful and historic city center as well as the old Bratislava castle. On the east side of the river is this:



It is Soviet bloc housing as far as the eye can see. You can get a better sense of what it looks like by opening the image in a new window and viewing it full size. It is interesting to think that a truly international city like Vienna was a mere 40 miles away from the edge of the iron curtain.

But to say that it was all gloom is inaccurate. It was actually a beautiful day outside and we spent time in the fun little historic district where people sell their crafts and play their accordions. What also made it a good time was the company. We went with a couple that we met here. Luckily one of them speaks fluent German. So between the four of us, nobody still had any idea how to read the Slovak street signs. You can see all the pictures from our Bratislava adventure here. Seeing these kinds of things really makes one glad to have been born into favorable conditions.

This week we are taking off for London! We hope to find out if Bob really is our uncle, and what the heck "bangers and mash" is. We were surprised to learn that, despite the general lack of religiosity in Europe, most countries here have a four-day weekend at Easter (Friday through Monday). So we are doing the American thing and turning that four-day weekend into a six-day one. We leave Wednesday for merry old London, return Easter Sunday, and then we'll obviously use Monday, the last day of our vacation, to blog our experiences and our feelings.

We're also taking suggestions on where to go next (after London), so send us a comment if you think you know what we should be seeing while we're here.

Finally, here is another random picture of Vienna:

Updates

These last two weeks have been pretty low key, but we have been able to get out and see a little bit more of this great city. We explored the oldest parts of Vienna hoping to see some ghosts from WWII - but all we really saw was this creepazoid who invented the printing press. Behold Gutenberg:


So if you have ever felt guilty for not diligently reading your bible, you can blame this guy. He is the one who made mass production of the text possible.

We have really gotten to like this city. It has a lot to offer: great architecture, pastries, operas, drunk Turkish people singing songs at train stops etc. But by far one of the most magical things we have done here is skating at the Rathaus (pronounced "Rat House" [by Brett]). The rats were nice enough to set up a cool skating rink in front of the big city hall. We have posted pics of this previously, but this time we went and actually skated. Check this out:


Now, we understand that it has been beautiful weather back home in AZ. And to that, we would just like to inform you that in Vienna last Thursday mother nature dropped the biggest snowflakes that the cranky old hag ever produced. So we wish you the warmest and comfortable-est of springtimes.

In other news, I have just found out that I'm invited back to the Middle East to attend and assist in the conference that I helped plan last summer when we were in Jordan. So I'm headed back to Amman in June. And the Arab Institute (where I worked) is paying my travel expenses. Luckily I have a flexible work schedule so I can do things like this (you know, take off four days in the middle of the week to do something that has nothing really to do with my real job at IAEA).

Lindsey is keeping busy with her work. We are fortunate that she has a job that allows her to work from anywhere in the world as long as there is an internet connection. It has been an invaluable source of income. After all, we need money to go to places like Tacos Lopez and the Fresco Grill (the two best Mexican restaurants in town). Last night we had a nice evening at Tacos Lopez. Everything was completely magical and the atmosphere was great - until a dog started barking... from underneath the table next to us.

Dogs are allowed to go everywhere in this city. And these are not the personal assistant dogs that some people have. These are just regular old mutts that people can't seem to part with even when they go out for dinner. Can you imagine sitting at a Chili's or something and then a dog starts barking at you from the adjacent table? So it's little things like this that are still taking some getting used to.

Finally, here is a picture of an old Catholic cathedral in Vienna that is currently undergoing renovations. After Lindsey took this epic picture of me, we realized that there was an advertisement draped over the scaffolding. That's right, there is a huge advertisement for a mobile phone company on the side of a Catholic church:



And to send you off with a prettier image than my own, here are some pictures of Lindsey enjoying a jumbo (and apparently Jewish) krapfen, and posing in front of an outdoor market down town