Giveaway Day 5: My Etsy Giveaway

Okay, it's the final giveaway! Have you entered the others? If not, you need to.

Today I'm giving away something from my very own etsy shop, Tres Magnifique. Have you visited?  If not, you're missing out!  I've got treasures I've found in flea markets all over Europe.  I only pick good stuff too.  Much of it you can find on PB, but I sell for about HALF (most of the time less than half) what they charge.  They are ridiculously overpriced.  Me, not so much.

Today, I'll be giving away one of my most popular sellers, a 3 stack book bundle with reproduction post card:

AND a vintage apothecary  bottle (your choice of ONE):

AND a gummy pizza!  Don't you want that???  Indy got one for his birthday (this one in fact) and was in heaven.  Don't eat the chili peppers though unless you like spicy because they are HOT.

But wait, there's more!  More?  Yes, more.  You will also get a bunch of other yummy German goodies in your package!  You'll just have to wait and see what.  We have good stuff over here!

To enter, go to my store Tres Magnifique and tell what your favorite item is.

If you'd like extra entries, do any (or ALL) of the following(leave a separate comment for each):

Heart my store or an item on my store

Follow me (or let me know if you're a follower)

Follow me on Twitter @MominHighHeels 

Tell me how awesome I am.


Happy Friday and don't forget to enter all the other giveaways:

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

And we're moving!!!!

One of the great things about military life is moving. You get to go new places, see new things and meet new people. It's also one of the bad things about military life. You have to leave your home, all the familiar things and your friends.
We've been here in Heidelberg for almost 3 years now and our time was coming to an end (most tours are 3 years). We were hoping to stay in Germany and last night we got the word that we will!!! We will not be staying in Heidelberg as it is shutting down (sadness), but will be moving up to Wiesbaden (just over an hour north of HD). Wiesbaden is pronounced Vees-bah-den BTW.   James Bond is very excited because he wanted to got to V Corps and now he will. I don't know what's so exciting about V Corps (we can't talk about his job), but whatever. I get to stay in Germany, so yay V Corps.
Indy is excited because he's got "more traveling to do." My boy is almost nomadic in his love of travel. He says we need to go to Greece (he thinks we should cruise around the islands), Egypt (of course), England, Scotland, back to Rome and Naples and maybe (meaning definitely) do another Disney cruise.
We've been it Wiesbaden a handful of times and found it to be a lovely city. Mainz, which is only a few minutes away is also beautiful.. I don't have any photos of my own on this computer, but here are a few I found on the interwebs.

Wiesbaden:

Mainz:

Doesn't this look awesome?!?!  I can't wait to see what the next 3 years bring.  Stick around for the next chapter in our great adventure.

Linking to:

Skiing the Alps

Sorry I've been MIA for so long, but, well, I've been busy. My mom (Gigi) and stepdad (Papa) arrived on the 7th and then we went to Bastogne, Belgium for the Battle of the Bulge memorial walk, and THEN down to Garmisch for a week of sightseeing in the cold and snow.
The first day we were in Garmisch, they were scheduled to go on a day trip to Innsbruck, Austria, but the weather was NOT cooperative, so the tour was canceled. There were already about 2.5 feet of snow on the ground and it was falling fast.  Indy had mentioned wanting to learn to ski while we were in the Alps, so I called the Hausberg ski lodge and got him into a ski class (even when the weather is bad, you can still ski). He was so excited. He'd never been on skis before and I was terribly nervous (I did not want him breaking anything a week before Christmas-well, ever really, but still).  The Hausberg has a private ski slope and for use by beginners only though, so that made me feel better.  We got there and suited him up (good golly did that take forever) and off to the slopes he went.  He had a great time!  I sat in the lodge drinking hot chocolate and watching him through the windows.  Not a bad way to spend a snowy day if you ask me.
He spent about 3 hours on the slopes and by the end of it was flying down the hill like a pro.  He had such a good time!  The next day Gigi and Papa went on a tour of a cheese factory and the Ettal Monastery, so I took Indy back to the Hausberg for more skiing.  He spent about 4 hours zipping and zooming down the hill like he was born on skis.  I suppose if you're going to learn to ski, doing so on the Alps is the way to do it.  Check out my little ski pro.

Food poisoning and German hospitals

So, I trust you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and are now gearing up for the fa-la-la-la-la insanity of the Christmas season.  T-giving was actually quite good for us, but the days before...not so much. 

The Friday before T-giving, James Bond and I went to a social function and had a great time.  It was almost like a date!  Saturday morning I felt...not so good.  Not pregnancy sick, sick sick.  Lying in the bed wishing you were dead sick.  You know what I mean.  I kept down a cup of tea and piece of dry toast (by sheer force of will, let me assure you) and Sunday was the same story (minus keeping down the piece of toast).  It was bad.  By Sunday evening, I knew I was dehydrated and it wasn't getting better.  I am not a fan of going to the hospital, but James Bond wasn't delirious with hunger and germs and made me go to the hospital.  Something about the baby and my health, blah, blah, blah.  We woke poor Indy up around 11pm (he was more delirious than I was-the boy needs his sleep) and headed over to Sankt Elisabeth Krankenhaus (St. Elizabeth Hospital) and I was immediately admitted.  They did an ultrasound and the baby was fine, but wasn't moving.  This freaked me out and I asked the doctor why.  She said simply "Er schläft" (He's sleeping).  I told her (irrationally in retrospect) to wake him up.  She clearly thought I was mad, but tapped my stomach a few times with the u/s wand and then I laughed because he head started shaking back and forth and his little hands were waving around and I had the image of Karl, from the movie UP.  The doctor clearly thought I was insane and began an IV push immediately.
Our insurance pays for a double room, but I opted to go with a private room for an extra 50 Euro a night (I was on the maternity ward and did not want to be in a room with a newborn).  This was a good call.  The room was large and crazy, crazy, crazy clean with a very posh bathroom.  I got loads of fluids and anti-nausea medication, which, turns out, I am allergic to.  I was literally itching from the inside.  Good times!  The only other things I could take while pregnant I have known allergies to (yeah, I'm a bundle of fun), so I just lay there miserable.  The nurse came back a while later and said she had something that would help and handed me a glass shot glass (none of those disposable paper cups here-that's wasteful) and asked if we used "ho-MAYO-puh-teek" in America.  Um, what was that again?  I had no idea what she was talking about but I looked down in the little shot glass and saw about 8 round white balls and it suddenly dawned on me what it was.  I looked up in surprise and said "Homeopathic!  Yes, of course, we have homeopathic medications in America."  What I didn't say though was "but they don't give them out in hospitals."
The next morning my OB came in and checked on the baby (still good) and me (still not good-it was really bad food poisoning, nothing more dangerous), took more blood and put me on a diet of zwieback and mushroom broth.  Yum.  The nurse asked me if we had zwieback in America and laughed when I told her that we did, but generally only gave it to toddlers who were teething.  I was there for 2 more nights on fluids and mushroom broth but I insisted that I was going home on Wednesday.  No way was I missing Thanksgiving.  The OB told me I should stay and "rest" another day or two, but I said absolutely not.  Here are some of the highlights of happenings and things I learned while there:


*The nurses work 6 hours shifts. 


*Their English is far superior to my German, but some of the things they said made me LOL.  One nurse (whose English was not very good) was asking me if I'd had any diarrhea or vomiting (or womitting as she called it), but she didn't know the word for diarrhea, so she put her hand on her bum and made a weird motion and asked if I had had "big toilet."  Thankfully, no, but the way she mimed and phrased it gave me a good chuckle.  Another nurse knew the term for diarrhea, but not vomiting, so she asked if I'd had the mouth diarrhea.  I almost died at the mental image.  Ick!


*For breakfast on the maternity ward, they have a buffet.  I was only allowed there on my last morning, but thought it was such an odd thing.


*Lunch is the big meal of the day.  My last night there, they finally decided I could eat and dinner (light fare) consisted of 3 slices of cheese and 2 pieces of bread.  I almost cried.  I was so hungry I called James Bond and told him he had to bring me some food or I was going to starve to death.


*German women stay 5-7 days in the hospital after having the baby.  The nurses wait on them hand and foot.  I know why they don't want to go home.

*The zwieback they serve tastes like it's made from brioche bread and was surprisingly good.  I understand why they laughed when I said we don't generally eat it in America.


This is the hospital where I will give birth and while being sick SUCKED, it was nice to get to know the staff at the hospital and see how things will work.


I'm hoping we can spend the next few months outside of the hospital only seeing the OB for normal appointments.  AND that I never, ever run across what made me sick in the first place.

Weekend getaway-day 2: flea market, monastery, gorge

Wow, doesn’t that title sound odd?  TO start us off, let’s have a look at a couple of photos of Mr. HH in front of our hotel.  Pretty, huh? That’s the Alpspitz and the Zugspitz in the background.

                      

After a day of merry making at Oktoberfest, we opted for a low key morning.  TOM’s Wife found out about a flea market in Oberammergau (home of a Passion Play first held in the 1600 and is held once every 10 years-next year is it) so we decided to go.  I’m always up for a flea market.  We piled into her car (she can seat 7) and headed up the mountain.  Seriously, up. Oberammergau is about 15 miles from G-P, but most of it is up a twisty, curvy, hairpin turn-y mountain road.   Oberammergau has an elevation of 2746 feet.  The flea market was pretty interesting.  It was far less cosmopolitan than the ones I’ve been to before (of course, I usually go to ones in cities) and had some really different stuff.  Lots of homemade dirndls, local wood carvings (they’re known for this), WWII stuff and old US military uniforms (the NATO school has been located there since 1953).  We didn’t find anything, but it was still cool to look around and to see that Bavarian’s actually do dress in Lederhosen and Dirndls for everyday wear.  

 

After the flea market, we drove to the town of Ettal home of the famous Ettal Abbey, founded in 1330.  Today there is a huge baroque church there and they are incredibly famous for their beer, wine and liquor.  That’s right, the monks brew and sell beer, wine and liquor.  And it is good.  Goooooooooood.

 

After lunch at a cafe just outside the abbey, we headed back down to G-P and to the Olympic Stadium before walking through the Partenach Gorge.  Check out the ski jump!

 

From here we walked about 1/2-3/4 of a mile to the entrance of the gorge.  I had no idea it would be quite so amazing.

   

Can you believe that?  When we got to the end of the gorge, there is a bit of a beach along the river and we decided to go dip our feet in the water.  This is a glacial river, people.  Brrrrrr!  

   

We planned on catching the bus back to our hotel, but someone (Mr. HH) made us miss said bus by about a minute and a half and since it was Sunday, there wasn’t another one for over an hour.  Mr. HH thought it would be a good idea to walk to at least the bahnhof.  About 2 miles away, after we’d already done all the walking in the gorge (approximately 2.5 miles).  Indy and I were not too pleased (especially me with my stupid heel spur), but we trudged on and made it to the bahnhof just in time to catch a different bus.  We went to the same little Irish pub as the night before (mostly because it was right next to the bus stop) and Indy and I nearly fell asleep on the table.  It was a fun, but exhausting day.