Snow Day!

After about two weeks of gray, rainy weather, it's finally snowing! A treat for me, but Matthias has committed to shoveling the driveway so he's not very enthused. It's not supposed to snow much, though, so he should be fine. 

Matthias had a bike tune-up appointment

I'm using the snowy Sunday as an opportunity to update the blog with this year's trip to the USA. Matthias decided to sit this one out, so I set out all alone on my flight from Munich Airport. I was delighted that I could leave our place in Passau early in the morning and catch public transport directly to the Airport for my 1pm flight. Despite an hour delay on the train (unfortunately becoming the norm in Germany) I made the flight easily and arrived on-time in DC for a two-night visit with Jen and Brenda, who were fortunately in town that week. Brenda and I set out immediately for a free concert at the Kennedy Center and Jen met us for dinner. The next day we took a nice walk, attended a cocktail reception at the restaurant in their building (good timing for me!), hung out, watched movies and even did some puzzling. It was a lovely visit and a great stop before the big Bar Mitzvah weekend in Atlanta.

Walking along the Potomac 

But wait, I just went to grab some pictures to include in this post and came upon pics from a trip last year I forgot to post. In June 2023, right before we were set to move to Passau, Matthias and I met Jen and Brenda in Spain. It really deserves more than a few sentences, but that's all it's going to get right now. We met the gals in their lovely accommodation in Sevilla, and despite the SEVERE HEAT (100+ degrees F) we had lots of fun roaming around and eating tapas. Then we went on to Granada where it was a just a tad bit cooler and did some fun wandering, the obligatory visit to the awesome Alhambra, Hammam visit, and more tapas! Matthias and I stopped in Malaga for a pleasant night before heading back to Gommern to pack!

Sevilla!

View of the Alhambra from our adventure walk!

At the Alcazar

Okay, back to October 2023 in Atlanta. I met Charlene at the airport and we caught the MARTA to the hotel where we met up with the rest of the family for cousin Danny's son Kemp's BM extravaganza! That included Friday evening Shabbat service and dinner, Saturday morning Bar Mitzvah service and lunch, the fancy party that evening and then Brunch on Sunday!! In between, we played with the little ones, Ione and Jordan, and of course found time for cocktails. We also made a trip to see Fred, my mom's 91 year old cousin in memory care (he did seem to know my mom, though!) and met Sue, Noah and Ari for pizza on Sunday. As the family left on Monday, I stayed behind to visit with Sue, Noah, Ari and Esme, who graciously invited me to stay at their place. Unfortunately, Danny and his family were under the weather throughout the weekend. But fortunately for us, Danny couldn't attend a concert he had five tickets for--Queen at the downtown arena--so he generously gave the tickets to us! It was the first concert I attended in many many years!! And fun!

Fun in the hotel lobby

mom's photo bomb!

Family picture (mom was in the bathroom)

Hanging out with Noah and Ari

The next day we went downtown for lunch and I headed to the airport for my flight to Baltimore. I stayed with Josh, Elisha and Ione for three days and had so much fun playing games with Ione and Josh! I was supposed to continue on to NYC but was exposed to COVID at some point (never got it) so Stu disinvited me and I went straight to Florida. 

Complicated gaming!

Ione demonstrating how apples clean your teeth!

Back in Sarasota at the beginning of November, Mom and I saw some shows, had some good eats and drinks and spent time together with family and some of her friends. Patrick came to visit and we were able to celebrate his 60th birthday together, as well as do some sightseeing and play more games!! Had a fabulous time together! Then mom and I had a fun day with Leoni and Norbert, who came down from Lakeland. Their visit was cut short due to illness, but Leoni did come back later on (in December) for another really fun visit!  

Patrick at O'Leary's! 

Patrick's birthday dinner. Nice colors!

Mom and Leoni at the beach

And THEN, since we were invited to join family for Thanksgiving in Long Beach, Long Island, I jumped on the opportunity to make it a special Thanksgiving + birthday weekend for mom. So on the day before Thanksgiving, we took a quick flight from SRQ to JFK and walked right off the plane and into the TWA hotel at the airport. It was AMAZING! The lobby and restaurants were in the original refurbished TWA terminal at JFK and it was super cool! The next day we took the airtrain and LIRR from the airport to meet Andrew, Laurene and Jordan in Long Beach. While waiting for family to arrive for Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel, we walked along the boardwalk, went to a playground and hung out in the lobby/cocktail bar. We had a lovely dinner together with the Bunte family - cousins that we don't get to see often enough!!

Mom at the TWA hotel. This album is a must see!!

Family at Thanksgiving dinner

Fun-loving cousins!

The next day, mom and I set out on the LIRR to our hotel in midtown Manhattan. The booking.com reservation said we could request a high-up room and the hotel delivered by putting us on the 33rd (top) floor! Amazing view! They also gave us a voucher for two drinks (each!) in the hotel bar, which we enjoyed after a birthday dinner of delicious Thanksgiving leftovers (and a fun game of Scattergories!) at Stu's apartment. The hotel bar itself wasn't a fabulous venue, but it was karaoke night and we had a blast! 

Birthday dinner at Stu's

View from our hotel room!

The next day, Laurene came to join us at the hotel and we met Lauren for lunch and some very fancy happy-hour cocktails. Then I got to spend the night at Stu's for a long evening of chatting/catching up. On Sunday, Mom, Laurene and I took the subway out to Queens (the actual Queens, not quasi-Queens [Stuy-town], where Stu lives 😂😂)  to visit with cousin Roz, whom we hadn't seen for years. Another great visit and delicious bagels to boot, yummmm! We celebrated my mom's birthday that day with drinks in a up-high (kind-of a rooftop) bar and dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. On Monday, mom and I flew back down to SRQ and as we went outside to find a taxi/uber, Mom said, "Can't we just take a bus?" and as it turned out, we could. Made it back to her place in 10 minutes for $1.50 (seniors over 80 ride free!) Fun end to a great (but not so little) trip!!!

Fancy cocktail hour!

in  Queens with Roz

Finally, back in Sarasota, Sue came to visit for a week. We also had a wonderful time catching up (including old photo albums and yearbooks, ugh!) and doing some Sarasota stuff like catching the sunset at Siesta Beach and wandering around the Ringling Museum. And throughout all this, we dealt with a leak of unknown origin at the Willow Links (henceforth to be known as Willow Leaks) condo, the one we just renovated last year. Just need to mention it here, not going to dwell on it. Also had an interesting experience on the way home to Germany. My second flight leg was cancelled which meant I had to overnight in DC. Fortunately, the next day I got to have lunch with Brenda, Jen, and Stu, who all happened to be in town! Yay!

Cornhole!

Siesta Beach sunset

Impromptu DC meetup!!

So that pretty much wraps up the early winter. I wanted to get this sloppy summary out before Matthias and I set out on our next adventure, to Vietnam. Leaving tomorrow!

 

Of course some time for Christmas markets in Germany...

...And Austria!

And a few weeks in Passau before our next journey.