Heidelburg

We went on a weekend visit to Heidelberg to see our friend Brad from Seattle. These are the pictures with him and his girlfriend Andrea. They took us around the beautiful city and showed us the big castle ruins. It was 300 steps up the hill in icy weather, but at least it kept us warm! We also bought gummibears and a new game to play that night. Unfortunately on Sunday it rained, hard, and we were not able to finish our tour of the city. But all in all it was a great trip and I got lots of cool castle ruins photos. The rest of the photos are on my picasa page if you are interested:
http://picasaweb.google.com/erika.stoll/Heidelberg?feat=directlink

Heidelberg

Abu Dhabi

From Bangkok we stopped in Abu Dhabi to visit with Clemens sister and her family. These pictures are from the newly built giant mosque, the newly built Formula One Hotel for the race last fall, and pictures of us playing with our niece Clara. Another great thing about marrying someone is you also get their family. Including cute two year olds that call you Eki-ja and want to play all the time.
One note: yes that is me in a headscarf and full-body black sack. I actually liked it a little. But the headscarf wouldn't stay on. It was a beautiful setting. And the mosque boasts the biggest continuous carpet in the world and also some really cool tile work.
Check it out at picasa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/erika.stoll/AbuDhabiTripMosquesAndClara?authkey=Gv1sRgCL-RiOnbv8CVWg&feat=directlink

New Apartment Pictures

We found an apartment in Munich! The renters that live there now choose us over the other applicants because they know it is hard for a foreigner (me!) to start in a new city. Plus they will only move upstairs and hopefully be our friends. The kitchen is small and does not have an oven, but they said I could come and bake cookies at their place for a small cookie tax. The upside of a crap kitchen is that we will be taking it out and I get to plan a new one at Ikea. It is super small, so there is more problem solving than fun, but it is still something that most people don't get to do at 26. Other points about the apartment is that the bathroom is small but nicely outfitted, the bedroom has a giant closet (not often found in Germany) and best of all, the living room is huge! It is huge! It included the office space/guest room, which is slightly walled off, but not with a door. Clemens favorite part is the old wood floor that is in good condition and my favorite part is the big windows that overlook the big shared yard/garden. Plus I can have a cat!
The area is nice, not as close to the river as we wanted, but also a much cheaper place too. We are very happy and look forward to moving in on February first.

More to come

Hello my favorite people. In interest in still keeping everyone updated with my far away life and sharing my new experiences, I am going to keep doing my blog but of Germany now and not Asia. It will probably be as often as before, but now with my own pictures included. I am still working on all the pictures we took on the trip, but they will soon be up on the internet for all to see.
Thanks for following my life and all the fun changes.

The picture is from the Bayon Temple at Angkor Wat.