Growing up, I always thought that I would take my husband’s name. I’m not a doctor or a lawyer or a writer with important published works under my name. My name isn’t particularly awesome or bad-ass, but I like it because it’s neutral and short. Weger. Way-grr. Everyone pronounces it wrong, but it’s not the end of the world when they do (except my last boss never ever EVER said my last name right, and you’d think after a year and a half of trying to gently correct her it would have sunk in, but no).

But regardless of my feelings for my last name, I was going to change my name to my husband’s because…that’s what you do. I even paid for the Miss now Mrs service that apparently helps you get all of the paperwork together for the name change. I wouldn’t really know because I never used it.

And here I am, still with my last name, 16 months after my wedding. Why didn’t I change it?

1. Right after our wedding, we booked plane tickets for Amanda and Corey’s wedding in Texas. I couldn’t change my name then because my plane ticket needed to match my ID.
2. In January, after Amanda and Corey’s wedding, we first got wind of a possible move to Spain, and it was possible that it could start as early as March (ha!). I didn’t think I’d have time to get all of my paperwork done then. When March came, we would be leaving in April, by April we wouldn’t be leaving until August, and then August turned into October. Now we’re living in Spain and I’m unable to go through the process at this point.

So those are the practical reasons why I didn’t change my name. I suppose I could still change it when I go back home and it would be no big deal at all.

Except….

I don’t like Mike’s last name. Even Mike isn’t a big fan of his last name. If he didn’t have his government clearances in his current last name, he might even change his name to something completely different because he just doesn’t like it very much.

And the biggest reason why I’m not changing my name?

Mike doesn’t want me to.

That was pretty surprising to me, honestly. Mike’s reasons were that his family ruined my wedding in almost every way possible and didn’t respect me long before that. His relationship with his parents has been stressful since he started to become more independent from them as an adult. We’ve cut off ties completely with them and I could never imagine being a part of their family after the way they’ve treated us. I was never, and will most likely never be, welcome into his family. That doesn’t give me much incentive to take a name I’m already not thrilled with. Add that Mike is against me taking his name for the above reasons, and it looks like I’m staying a Weger.

It makes me a little sad in some ways because I always pictured having a family name. It’s not groundbreaking stuff for a woman to keep her name these days, so it’s not that bad, but just not what I had expected for myself. At the same time, taking their name feels a little repulsive to me. I wish I didn’t have such a strong gut reaction to it, but I do.

And then the next big question is what will our children be named? Will they take Mike’s name even though he’s deemed it not good enough for me to take? Will they take my name and confuse everyone by not being named after their father? Will Mike be harassed by a macho-man type who thinks it’s figurative castration that his children don’t have his name?

I have to admit, it does sound better to me to name my children after my family. It sounds much nicer to honor my family who has been there for us through everything, who have supported us and loved us no matter what. It sounds more special to me to make the conscious choice of naming my children after people who we respect, admire and love rather than people who have treated us like dirt. I would be happy knowing that my children would be connected to and loved by the people with whom they share a last name.

But the social implications of going against tradition can be irritating to manage. The questions of “why” we chose what we did would be prevalent throughout our lives, and I know that I definitely don’t want to relate our family issues to every curious person. Would the answer “it’s just what we chose to do” be good enough? Would people judge me as some sort of controlling whacko who didn’t let her children take her husband’s name?

Or is it just a name? Should they take their father’s because it’s simply the way the world works? Is it not worth bucking tradition because it’s easier? Is it not worth the frustration of people judging us for making a nontraditional choice? Am I overanalyzing the importance of a name? (Okay, don’t answer that–I know I am. But I still have strong negative feelings when I think about taking the name of people who hate us.)

Of course we have time before we have to figure everything out, but it is important to me for us to come to some conclusion about this. Mike is not opposed to our future children taking my name, but is just unsure of how to deal with the questions and judgement that might come as a result of that decision. We’ve already agreed on not hyphenating our children’s names, though it would probably be more socially acceptable than the children taking my name.

Oh, what a world we live in. What would you think of children who have their mother’s name and not their father’s? Is it as big of a deal as I fear it might be, or is it not so bad? What assumptions would you make about me or Mike based off of what last name we give our children?

I don’t know whether others’ opinions will influence our ultimate decision, but I am curious about how we might be perceived. No matter what, I think we’ll make the right decision for us, whatever it may be.

Then after I came across an article from Simple Organic posting about the benefits of natural sea salt versus highly refined table salt, you really didn’t have to convince me any further to give this a try. Natural sea salt has so many more nutrients and is much more flavorful than table salt, which sounds like a win-win to me!

Now that I live right down the road from a few beaches, making my own salt is suddenly very possible, very easy, and free! We didn’t have beautiful glass jugs, but we did have empty milk liters.

(Stay tuned for a post about Wrigley & Zoe’s day at the beach)

When we first made salt, we brought three liters of water home with us and it yielded about 3/4 cup of salt.

What I wasn’t anticipating was how absolutely fascinated my husband would be with the process. The same day that we finished our first pot of salt, we went back to the ocean for EIGHT more liters of water.

Mike stood in the kitchen most of the day literally watching the water boil.

Late last night, the salt finally dried up enough and this morning, we have…a lot more salt!

Also, I guess Mike was in the 3rd grade science mood because he put an egg in a cup of vinegar just to watch it strip the shell from the egg. I think he was meant to be a mad scientist, not an engineer.

Mike was absolutely giddy over the whole process, so if you have kids, hopefully they will be too. It might be a cool thing to do the next time you’re on vacation (if you’re renting a condo with a stove).

I definitely don’t think we’ll be buying salt while we live in Spain!

Have you made sea salt before? Do you ever like to do elementary school science projects in your kitchen too, or is it just my husband?

One thing that really caught our attention was Bourdain’s Naples episode where he ate sea urchin STRAIGHT from the ocean and raved about it. Well…we wanted to do that too, so I put it on my 101 in 1001 list.

Yesterday, we went to one of the beaches within walking distance from our home and went hunting for some sea urchin!

We went during low tide so we would have a better chance of finding the creatures in one of the many tide pools, and we were successful! I was the first to spot a pool with many sea urchins who looked ripe for the picking.

Of course, when I hunt for sea urchin, I must look stylish.

Victory!! I was so proud of myself for plucking my first one out of the water! The glove definitely helped so I could get a better grip without puncturing myself. I only plucked 5 out of the tide pool so I wouldn’t decimate the population in that particular neighborhood.

While we didn’t eat the sea urchin right then and there, we brought them back home and dove right into preparing them so they would be as fresh as possible. If you find yourself in possession of a sea urchin, follow these steps. I used help from this video on youtube so I kinda knew what I was doing.

As for the taste, it was creamier than other roes that I’ve had. It definitely tasted fresh from the sea–a little briny, but not overwhelmingly fishy. Was it as awesome as I was expecting? Not really, because my expectations were probably unattainably high. But the satisfaction of capturing, cutting open and preparing something completely foreign to me was amazing.

Would we eat uni again? Absolutely! I think I’d try making it into a sauce next time, since I once had something similar at a local restaurant and it was delicious.

Besides our scavenge for sea urchin, we also picked up quite a few mussels.

While they were smaller than we’re used to getting at the market here, they were just as delicious.

Overall, we were really slap-happy over how fun and simple (and free) our meal was. It is always exhilarating to try new things, and we got some seriously good, seriously fresh food out of it. It’ll definitely be experiences like this that we’ll remember the most from living here, and it’ll be opportunities like this this that we’ll miss the most when we’re back home.

Have you ever scavenged and prepared your own seafood? Would you give sea urchin a try straight from the ocean?

I have no interest in being bashed for my personal experiences, so I stayed quiet and read some books instead because reading has always been able to transport me away from my thoughts.

But now that I have some perspective on the situation, I thought I’d write about my experience because I’m in a better place now.

1. I gave up my independence.

Giving up my independence was very hard for me. I’m used to being able to do everything for myself. If I needed something, I’d get it myself. If I wanted to go somewhere, I would go. Moving here eliminated that option for me because I don’t have a car. I depend entirely on Mike to take me places, and staying in the house all day was making me stir-crazy. I felt worthless and anxious all of the time.

To combat the feeling of worthlessness, I started actively trying to think of ideas for personal projects. I fleshed out ideas for possible business ventures. I created an awesome version of my resume on Photoshop. I’ve learned more html and css. Instead of giving in to my feelings of being trapped in the house, I tried to turn it into a time for me to focus on myself and focus on my goals. It’s worked. It has given me something to focus on and I’m building my skill set up for when I reenter the workforce after this experience.

I still have my days of feeling locked up in the house without anywhere to go, but having more goals has definitely helped.

2. It’s not as romantic as I pictured.

I pictured Under the Tuscan Sun meets Eat, Pray, Love. I pictured running into town to chat with the locals who made fun of me for my horrible Spanish, taking bike rides and perhaps rediscovering a love to paint. I pictured sowing a garden in a little patch of rustic earth. I pictured eating great food every day at new and fun restaurants. I pictured the movie-star version of myself (Ms. Anne Hathaway, if you were wondering) living here. It’s not like that.

But living here does have its quirks and movie moments, so I try to remember that most people’s lives are not film-ready and I’m no exception. I can’t run into town, and I can’t carry on a long enough conversation in Spanish for anyone to make fun of me in the first place. The hills where I live are nearly impossible to bike without some serious training, and the art supplies I brought with me are sitting in the guest closet untouched. The rustic patch of earth that I plan to sow? Well, it’ll take quite a lot of manual labor to get that ready. And the restaurants here all serve exactly the same thing, which is great, but I don’t want it every single day.

So things aren’t quite as romantic as I pictured. It’s okay though…I’m readjusting my vision to a more realistic outlook.

3. Loneliness.

I love Mike. I can talk to him for hours and hours. We’re perfect companions. But he can’t be the only human being that I interact with. I had a hard time accepting that Mike could go off to work and get social interaction from his English-speaking coworkers while I was in the house, trying to learn Spanish on my own without anyone to talk with. And yes, we tried to go to our local bar so I would get more language skills, but I’m not exactly going to be BFF’s with the much (much) older crowd that frequents the place.

I’m still working on my loneliness. Some days are hard. I have met a woman recently who has been nice enough to take me into town to go to the market and go for coffee. She lives right down the road from me, so I can walk over if I need some human interaction. She’s been absolutely wonderful and I’m so grateful to her for being so kind to me. I’ve also grown much much closer to Wrigley and Zoe since I’ve been here. My relationship with my dogs has changed completely. They are absolutely everything to me–I love them so much more today than I ever have. They’re wonderful companions and I never could have moved here without them.

4. Things are just different.

Of course things are different. I knew that things would be different. I thought I would LOVE that things were different. No chain restaurants, no big box retailers, fresh markets daily, a smaller, simpler life was what I wanted. But when adjusting to a new place, sometimes just those little familiar comforts from home are sorely missed. A recognizable brand or store is very welcome to me as I’ve been battling homesickness. Sometimes, you just like the option to go to Target if you need something instead of simply not knowing where to go to get what you need.

But that has been getting easier as we get more used to our surroundings. We’ve found suitable substitutes for many of the things we miss, and have been appreciating all of the things here that we will miss terribly when we go back home. It’s still hard sometimes because I do miss home and many things about it, but I’m loving this lifestyle more and more for what it is. No, I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life, but while I’m here, I’m appreciating it more and more.

5. The Language Barrier.

I don’t know as if I’ll ever be fluent in Spanish. Learning a language is harder than I thought it would be. I can understand much more now and can usually follow a conversation if it is slow enough, but I don’t yet have the vocabulary to be able to string any sentence I want together. It can be isolating and frustrating to not be able to say what I want to say, or understand someone else. Going to the market with my new friend is helping, but I have a very long road ahead of me.

So it hasn’t been easy. The holidays were especially full of tears and sadness because I missed my family. Video chatting is always helpful and I’m so happy that we have technology to keep us connected. Things are finally getting easier, which I’m very grateful for. I do really love the fact that this experience is teaching me so much about myself and the world. It’s valuable experience that I’m sure will help me in life.

They aren’t always easy lessons though, and I will have days where all I want to do is go home. I will still have days where I’m frustrated and overwhelmed and lonely. I’ll probably NEVER understand why some Spanish customs are what they are, and I’ll probably always be a little confused by a lot of things. I’ll probably be very glad to get back to some aspects of my life in the States and mourn some aspects of life here. This experience is probably not movie material like I thought it would be, but it’ll be an essential part of who I become.

Our trip down to the South of Spain was successful! After a few days of being routed and rerouted to different buildings, different departments, we weren’t sure that we were going to get our official paperwork. It was pretty stressful and frustrating to be in lines for hours and hours only to be told that we had been given form A to fill out and we needed form B.

But it’s done. We’re legal. We have awesome stamps in our passports now, I have an ID card that will get me on any international US naval base and we both passed our driver’s tests! We have to wait 3 months for our licenses to arrive. No one said that the Spanish government was in a hurry, huh?

Speaking of the slowness of Spain, our Christmas packages that were being held up in customs have officially been sent back to the US. I think. I just hope they make it back to my parents because I don’t want the money they spent on us for Christmas to be lost. That would be pretty tragic.

So we’ve been here for nearly three months now, and I’m no fan of exactly how things are run in this country because every step of the way has been painful, frustrating, annoying and pretty awful.

BUT. But. I can say that when I try to put those feelings aside, I’m starting to get more used to living here. I like it even. There was never any doubt that this would be superior to the beauty of New Jersey, and it is really, very beautiful. The weather is getting nicer and less rainy, and I am getting excited to experience this area of Spain in the Spring and Summer because I think it’ll be awesome. I’ve made a couple of new Spanish friends recently, and having those companions to talk to has also certainly made my outlook on life a little sunnier.

The view from our bedroom is still breathtaking.

I’ve even started a new blog project which will be very different from this personal blog, and I’m so excited to tell you guys about it, but it’s not ready yet. From this new project, I also have the opportunity to do some freelance writing for a local Philadelphia magazine, which I’m hoping works out because that would be so exciting for me to be published.

I’m happy to be back! Be on the lookout for a few more posts this week because I’m feeling inspired!

Right now we are in the car for a very long day of driving. About 9 hours of driving. And from where we live, we could get to any number of places in 9 hours, but this time, we’re on official business: put an end to our illegal immigration status.

In order to do this, we have to go to a US Naval Base in the south of Spain. They’ll take our passports from us for the week, process us, and give us the wonderful little stamp that allows us to be here. We have been laying low over the holidays since the police are very quick to pull over anyone at night to breathalyze them/check their papers. So with our newly attained SOFA (Service Of Forces Agreement) status, we will be able to once again leave the house without fear of being pulled over and being locked up abroad.

But just because we’re on official business doesn’t mean we won’t be making the most of this trip! We get two days of travel down to Rota, where the Naval Base is. Tonight, we’re stopping in Sevilla for the night. Tomorrow, we’ll head into Gibraltar and check it out before going on to our hotel.

Our hotel in Sevilla–hopefully it really does look this cool in real life!

Our hotel in Rota, where we’ll be staying for the week.

The week won’t be too busy for us, but we do have to take Spanish driving tests! It’s a written test, thank goodness, and it’ll be in English since many of the men and women at the Navy Base need their license. We get a little review session before the test…I hope I pass! It’s certainly been awhile since I’ve taken a driving test.

Other than that, we’re going to explore the Cadiz area and relax! We’re excited to explore yet another area of Spain, and I get to add another country to the places I’ve been–we’re spending all day driving through Portugal!

Oh, and I almost forgot–one of the parts I’m the most excited for!! On the Naval Base, there is an American grocery store where we can get some of our favorites from home that we’ve been missing. I’m looking forward to marshmallows and reese’s cups!

Wish us luck on our Spanish driving tests!

I’m 25 years old and I’m starting to realize that all of the Big Important Dreams I’ve had will only come true if I work really, really hard at them. And honestly? I haven’t been doing such a great job at that. I always assumed that “things would work out” in my favor, but unless I work at it, that may not be the case.

My Big Important Dreams have been changing dramatically over the last few years. Instead of a luxurious home with fame, fortune, designer labels and summer homes, my Big Important Dreams have actually become Modest Important Dreams. I’ve grown up and realized what’s really, truly important to me.

My Big Important Dreams:

1. Be my own boss
2. If I can’t be my own boss, work for a company with ideals and philosophies that match my own
3. Do something creative and inspire others
4. Have the ability to stay/work at home with my children in their early years, work around their schedule as they grow
5. Despite working around my children’s schedule, have a satisfying and personally fulfilling career
6. Live near a city I love
7. Bring extra money into the household that will allow us more comfort and stability
8. Travel and appreciate the world around me

Now that I’m in Spain and have no career, I have a lot of self-reflection time. I know that the perfect career for me won’t just drop into my lap, and if I ever want to be my own boss, I will have to make that happen for myself. If I want the freedom and flexibility to raise a family the way I want, then I have to start working toward that now, before I even have children. If I want to have it all, I have to work at it myself. I have to act.

I don’t want to be one of those people with Big Important Dreams but don’t have the Big Important Work Ethic to achieve them. I don’t want to blame circumstances or other people or anything for not going for what I want in life. Here I am with all of the time in the world to pursue my Big Important Dreams, and so 2012 will be the year that I lay the groundwork.

I have some projects that I’m working on that have excited me and made me happy. I have both long and short-term goals. I have a plan A and a plan B, both of which I think are realistic to achieve if I work hard. I have a supportive husband, I have the time, and I (think) I have the money to try.

So here’s to 2012. I hope that it is an inspiring year. I hope that it’s a year that I try a lot harder than I did in 2011. I hope that it’s a year that I can look back on and be proud of myself.

How are you adjusting your dreams as you get older?

Bah humbug.

And it’s not really the gifts that I’m mad about, it’s just the fact that my parents spent so much money shipping that stuff to us only to have it held up.

But despite the bummer when it came to our gifts, we really did have a nice Christmas. We had to wait until 4pm our time until we started our video chat with my parents and my sister and BIL. We still got to spend time with everyone and participate in the festivities, even if it was through a screen.

I probably should have taken a screenshot, but Mike took a photo of us in the screen instead.

What we looked like from their side!

The day after Christmas, my parents hooked us up at Grandma’s house so we could see and chat with the extended family. It was so wonderful and it felt like we were almost there.

Almost.

I miss my family and wish like crazy that we could have spent time with them this holiday season. Last year we were unable to make Christmas in the Midwest because our honeymoon had eaten all of my vacation days.

There is no way that we’re missing Christmas next year. I don’t care where we are on this planet–we’re going to make it home for Christmas.

We have a lot to look forward to in the new year though, so we’re trying to keep our chins up and look forward to everything exciting we have going on here.

Our blue christmas tree!

Have you ever spent a Christmas away from family? How did you connect with them over the holidays despite the distance?

Our driving day to Neuschwanstein Castle (heretofore represented as NC because I can’t keep typing that out) was foggy. Not just a little foggy, it was foggy to the extreme of not being able to see 50 feet in front of you, which isn’t the best way to be driving on the German Autobahn.

The Autobahn is almost as terrifying as I pictured it–people will fly by at speeds of 200 kph or more. Our tiny little rented Peugeot could not top 144 kph (90 mph) though we sure tried. I felt like the car was going to come apart at the seams at that speed, so we didn’t try to maintain it. It was fun to see how fast we could go, but we preferred to keep it safe. When we did pass some slower cars, we had to be especially careful about cars coming up behind us. They could go incredibly fast and would NOT slow down for anything. There were a few close calls which prompted screaming and nervous fits of giggles after the cars passed. Our tip–if you don’t have a big enough engine to handle it, stay out of the left lane. We learned our lesson.

When we got to NC, the fog hadn’t lifted. It was enormously disappointing because I was picturing this:

Source

Instead, we got this:

Boooo. So we couldn’t see it from the outside, and we weren’t allowed to take pictures from the inside. I was sad that I wouldn’t have much to show for the whole thing.

Here are some photos that I did capture despite the fog.

This smaller castle was below the fog, but we did not choose to tour and visit this one.

Kinda blah, right?? We overheard some of the workers saying that it was the worst fog they’d seen in the area for awhile. Lucky us!

Despite it being ridiculously foggy outside, inside the castle was just plain ridiculous.

The paintings, the details, the carvings, the walls…EVERYTHING in this castle was incredible. It was so incredibly intricate that I kept saying to myself “This is just stupid. That’s STUPID!” I didn’t mean stupid in that I didn’t like it or that it wasn’t worthy to see…it was stupid in that it was so absolutely mind bogglingly ridiculously incredible that I didn’t have any other words for it. It was beautiful. It was amazing. It was worth seeing just because you can’t believe something like this exists in the world and that it was created for one man (who died before he could even live in it).

Of course, since it was so incredibly stupidly awesome, it attracted busloads of people, so it was very very commercialized. Of course they led you through three different gift shops on the short tour. Of course you were stuck with a group of 100 other tourists to bump into in tiny spaces. But sometimes, you just have to deal with the tourists and the commercialism to see something amazing. I wish it hadn’t been so foggy that day so we could have gotten an even more full experience.

After our tour, we packed up and headed into Liechtenstein, where the fog never let up. We arrived at night, too late to take pictures. The next morning, the fog persisted until after breakfast when we could finally see what the fog hid from our hotel view:

Beautiful, beautiful mountains.

We couldn’t stay long to admire them though…we had a long day of driving through the mountains ahead of us in order to catch our flight that evening. The views on the way to the airport were fascinating and breathtaking. I truly, truly feel like I could be a mountain girl after this vacation because I couldn’t get enough of the stunning landscape.

I have a feeling that we’ll find our way back to these parts of the world multiple times in our lives. I felt so happy on this vacation, seeing the many wonderful things we saw. I highly recommend going near Christmastime if you can because the cheer in the air was very worth the chilly temps and rainy/snowy/foggy weather.

Now that we’re back home in Spain, it feels good to be next to our Christmas tree with our pups, but we’re already planning our next trip for early January! More on that later!

Mike and I didn’t waste a lot of time when we got in…we headed straight for (you guessed it) the nearest glühwein booth!

The glühwein mugs kept getting nicer and nicer as our trip progressed, but since we were in Germany, we couldn’t go the whole trip without making the rounds to some bierhalls!

I will be forever partial to weissbiers…I don’t care if it makes me “such a girl.” Because I am. So hmph!

As evening fell, we decided to stuff ourselves silly on streetfood instead of going for a balanced meal at a restaurant. This is mostly what we did throughout the trip to keep costs down on the meals inbetween our Michelin-star restaurant excursions. More on that in a bit.

Now, it was all really the same from market to market. There weren’t a ton of differences besides the amount of people milling around and the mug that they were serving the glühwein in. But even though each market was largely the same, I really, really, really loved all of them. Having so much Christmas spirit in the air made me extremely happy, as did all of the sweets and foods that were delicious and cheap. Everyone that we came across in Munich spoke English as well, so it was also a very accessible city for tourists.

The other days that we were in Munich, it rained, so I didn’t take photos of their incredible day market, where there was produce galore. I could definitely see myself living happily in Munich, with the great public transportation, the shopping, the food, and the markets that were definitely superior to the little ones we have in our area of Spain.

We also went to Tantris, a 2-Michelin star restaurant with fabulous 70′s-era decor. Seriously, “orange carpet on the ceiling” type of fabulous.

In all honesty, we were a little disappointed in Tantris. It makes me feel like the snob-of-all-snobs saying that a 2-Michelin star restaurant wasn’t up to snuff, but there were a few dishes that left us less than impressed, which isn’t exactly what you want when you’re shelling out that kind of dough. Overall, I thought that it wasn’t worth the money or the rating. We had a good meal, but it wasn’t as special as we had hoped.

The other restaurant we went to while in Munich was called Terrine. It’s a one-Michelin star restaurant, and it was HARD TO FIND. We were about 35 minutes late to our reservation because we could not find where it was located. Oh, and it was raining. We were terrified of being charged as no-shows, but we made it and settled in.

Since this was the last restaurant we had planned for our trip, we decided to go all out for it and order the full, 10-course meal with wine pairings for each course. It. was. wonderful.

I won’t post pictures of this experience since the lighting was bad and my Photoshop skills just aren’t good enough to do it justice. Instead, I’ll let the menu speak for itself.

king crab and scallops in lime vinaigrette
tahiti vanilla, air “pata negra”

carpaccio of venison
kohlrabi, black truffle

lobster with squash and watercress
crispy calf’s head

john dory in clear bean-tea
seafood & red bell peppers

wild duck with black pudding and sauerkraut
cassis fruits

red mullet
cauliflower wonton, spinach, curry

chicken breast and leg
beetroots, artichokes, treviso

roquefort creme

grape granité, dark chocolate
cinnamon cake, orange, basil sorbet

warm chocolate espuma, rum banana, kafir lime ice cream

Some of it may sound odd or strange or not super appetizing, but it was amazing. It was a wonderful meal with all of the flavors adding something to the experience. The wine pairings with each meal were especially appetizing and we had a few very, very memorable wines. The service was all wonderful and we learned new things about cooking techniques and different wineries. While the meal was one of our most expensive on the trip, it was definitely worth it.

Munich was, in a word, magical. I loved so much about the city and I can definitely see myself revisiting. The bierhalls were fun, the dining was wonderful, the streetfood and markets were amazing.

Next, I’ll take you to Neuschwanstein Castle and Liechtenstein to round out our Winter Vacation!