Finding Our Roots

Last year when we were in Korea we decided to subscribe to Ancestry.com so we could start creating one family tree for our newly formed family. We were able to trace our lineage back to when most of our ancestors came to America. On our European adventure we realized that the cities from which both of our father's families originate were within a few hours drive of Gelsenkirchen.

First we decided to visit Tourinnes-la-Grosse, Belgium. Jeff's father's side of the family left here in the 1850s to head to America. It was a super cute, super small town. You can tell everyone knows everyone because as we drove through the streets people looked at us with a look of "who are these strangers driving around!?!" After driving around the town we found the really old church that we were pretty sure Jeff's family belonged to. Inside we saw a cornerstone indicating that the church had been standing since the 1700s (which is a huge feat given the destruction caused by World War II). After looking inside the church we examined the cemetery surrounding the church to see if there were any family headstones. We weren't able to find any from Jeff's family, but there were a ton with the last name Degreve, who at some point married into Jeff's family. We believe that a Degreve married into Jeff's family and left her family behind when his family traveled to the US.

Later on in our trip we drove to Glandorf, Germany, where Mia's father's side of the family lived before coming to America in the 1830's. We were also able to find her family's church, St. Johannis, but unfortunately the church is not the same one that the family attended. The church was destroyed in World War II, but parish rebuilt a new church, which was still pretty cool to see!

We also found the "old" town cemetery, but we didn't find any graves there for people who passed away before World War II. Our best guess is that maybe the cemeteries were destroyed in the war, and the "old" cemetery was created after the war. Since the family left in the 1830s, we weren't able to find any grave, but it was still really interesting to walk through the cemetery and the town.
We have to say that visiting the exact places that our ancestors used to live was really a once in a lifetime experience that neither of us will forget.

Manneken Pis Party

A few weekends ago, before the job in Gelsenkirchen was completed, we took a road trip through Belgium and stayed in Brussels. The last stop on our city tour was the popular tourist attraction "Manneken Pis." You may recognize this naked statue of a boy peeing, as we did in the tourist books. As we approached the area of the statue we saw that there were tons of people crowding the streets around the statue. We just figured they were all there to see the cute little bronze tyke. However, when we arrived we were shocked at what we saw - Manneken Pis was wearing clothes!

His little hooh-hah was still providing a nice fountain stream, but what was with the frock and pink elephant? After looking around we noticed that not everyone was there to admire the statue. They were across the street enjoying free beer, compliments of Delirium Tremens. It took us a second but we finally made the connection between the Delirium Tremens logo (a pink elephant on a blue background) and the outfit that little Manneken Pis was wearing. The statue was all dressed up as a part of this big promotional party.

Not being the type to turn away free beer, we grabbed a few drinks and joined the crowd in the streets. At this point we noticed another hilarious part of the beer promotion. A crazy looking older guy (I'll explain more about him later) was pushing around a cart with a replica of Manneken Pis on top of it. With the push of a button the replica could spray unsuspecting passer-bys. Occasionally the guy operating the cart would begin to chase through the crowd spraying any and everyone in his path.

Needless to say, this was completely hilarious to watch. We are not exaggerating when we say that we watched clueless tourists being chased and sprayed for over an hour!

An event like this certainly brought all of the crazies out of the woodwork. They were probably all attracted by the gentleman chasing people through the crowds with the Manneken on a cart. If there were a contest for the world's craziest moustache, this guy would win hands down!

Some of our other favorites in the crowd included this young woman who danced to some great 90s tunes,

and this guy who, well, we're not really sure what to say about this guy!

Life Update

Hello all! We know it's been a while, so we thought we would give you a quick update on our lives. We left Gelsenkirchen on August 25th and headed off on a two week vacation. We decided to rent a car and drive through Western Europe. Along the way we stopped in TONS of different cities and were overwhelmed by all that we saw in such a short time. We will post more details later, but our main stops were Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva (Switzerland), Lucerne (Switzerland), Fussen (Germany), Munich (Germany), Rothenburg o.d.t. (Germany), and Dusseldorf (Germany). Throughout the trip we constantly commented that it felt like we were on our third honeymoon (the first being the real one in Costa Rica and the second our month in Australia). I guess it's hard to complain when you can have three honeymoons all before your first wedding anniversary!

Anyways, we left Germany on Sunday and Jeff left on Wednesday for a quick job in Daesan, South Korea. I decided to stay back because the town is very small and there's not much for me to do there during the day. Plus it's a quick job, so I know Jeff will be back soon!

Our German Travels

The greatest thing about being in Gelsenkirchen is that we are within driving distance of a number of really unique German cities. Normally we have to save our sightseeing for the weekend when there is time to drive further out, but since everything is so close we were able to travel to a different city every night last week.

On Monday we traveled into downtown Gelsenkirchen, which is really cute. There's a large shopping area with cobbled pedestrian walkways (you may remember we previously got to see these when our taxi driver thought these were roads).
On Tuesday we headed to Munster, about 45 minutes away. We toured the altstadt (old city), which was beautiful. The creepiest/most interesting sight we saw there was St. Lambert's Church. At the top of the steeple you may notice three hanging cages. These were used in the 16th century to display the bodies of the leaders of the anabaptist Munster Rebellion. Talk about creepy! It is pretty cool that the cages and the cathedral itself are so well preserved considering it was built in 1375.
We also had our first authentic German meal at the Pinkus Mueller Brewery: sausages, potatoes, sauerkraut, and of course beer brewed on-site. There was even a band playing old time German music.
On Wednesday we drove to Dusseldorf. Despite our crazy taxi ride, we learned that it really does take just a half an hour to get there! Again we went through the altstadt, where we found this cool octagonal shaped art museum.

We also spent some time strolling through the cobblestone streets and the walkway along the Rhine River.

On Thursday we went to Essen. We heard there was huge Synagogue there with a really unique museum in the basement. Unfortunately the museum was closed, but the building was certainly impressive.

Just like all of the towns in this area, there was a huge Catholic Cathedral there. We went to check it out when suddenly the church bells started ringing and people began filing out of the church. We watched for a while and realized that the Bishop was saying mass for some reason. We watched in the courtyard for a while as the Bishop greeted everyone. The one really unique thing about this cathedral is the golden statue of the Virgin Mary which dates back to the 11th century.
On Friday we stayed in the Gelsenkirchen-Buer area and had dinner at this gorgeous old castle (complete with a moat!) that has been converted into a restaurant. We didn't stay out too late because we were gearing up for our weekend trip to Belgium. We had an awesome time there, but that's for another post!

The Lotus Pond

One of the coolest places we found in our short time in Kaohsiung was the Lotus Pond. We were hit by two typhoons (thank you very much Pabuk and Wutip) while in Taiwan, so the weather never really allowed us to get out to the pond until the last day we were there. It was still pretty rainy the whole day, but we made the most of it and got some pretty cool pictures along the way.

When you first arrive at the pond, it's really an amazing site. Everywhere you look you see pagodas and temples, many of which are actually in the water.

Our first stop was the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. They looked like they could be really cool, but unfortunately there was construction, and we weren't allowed to go inside.

We headed further around the lake and came across the Spring and Autumn Pavilions. The area where the Pavilions are located is filled with really unique statues and gorgeous lanterns. They also provided us great cover, as the skies decided to open up right as we reached the pavilions.

There was also this huge statue of Confucius out on the water. As we approached, we realized the statue was actually a three or four story temple. It was pretty cool.

The temple was also surrounded by a big Koi pond containing the largest Koi either of us had ever seen. We bought some fish food and had fun fattening them up even more!

Our final stop along the pond was the Confucius Temple at Kaohsiung, which is the largest Confucius temple in Taiwan.

The Love River

One of the main tourist attractions in Kaohsiung is the Love River area. The river used to be filthy from polution and was an embarassment to the city. However, it has been recently renovated and is now a really unique area with different buildings and parks surrounding the banks. Jeff and I walked around this area on several occasions and took a bunch of pictures.

Our favorite part of the river area was definitely the large dragon statue. We couldn't really tell, but it looked like it had a mermaid tail, so we called it the mer-dragon.

At night, the river is full of lights, which is really cool, because it looks completely different than it does by day.

We Have a New Photo Site

Thank you for all of the recomendations we received regarding photo sites. I think we have found a winner. Our new photo site is jeffandmia.winkflash.com. It is still a work in progress, but we have most of our pictures from Australia and Taiwan posted. We think this should work out well, but if anyone has any trouble, just let us know!

Hallo aus Deutschland

Hello from Germany! Jeff and I have left Taiwan and arrived here in the land of sausage and beer (sound like Wisconsin to anyone else?) this morning. We flew into Dusseldorf and had to take a taxi to our hotel in Gelsenkirchen, about 30 miles away. We didn't think it would be that big of a deal since we had the address and phone number of the hotel. We went to the front of the taxi cue, loaded up our luggage, and gave the driver (who spoke very little English) the address. He looked confused, but said "Ok, ok. I have good GPS." Okay, clearly he didn't know firsthand where it was, but we all know GPS is great, so we still weren't worried. He typed the address into the GPS, but could not find our specific road. After sitting on the side of the road at the airport for about 10 minutes while our driver repeated this same process over and over, he decided to head to Gelsenkirchen in hopes that he would find better directions once we were there.

So off we went on what we thought would be a quick half hour ride. We were cruising the autobahn when we noticed that we passed the exit for Gelsenkirchen. We didn't speak up, and luckily there was another Gelsenkirchen exit further down the road. After entering town, the taxi driver again tried his GPS to no avail. He then decided to stop at a gas station for directions. We still didn't think too much of it, as gas stations usually know the area. Our driver came back into the taxi and seemed confident that he knew where he was going. After a few more minutes of driving, he started stopping pedestrians and asking them if they knew where the hotel was. Since we don't speak German we really had no clue what these people were saying, but after each pedestrian conversation our driver seemed confident that he knew where he was going. After it became painfully clear that we were hopelessly lost, Jeff and I discussed that he must not have a cell phone because he obviously would have called the hotel by now to get directions. About a minute after that conversation we heard a ringing coming from the center console and our driver answered his phone. When he got off Jeff suggested that he simply call the hotel for directions, but he swore up and down that he knew where he was going.

After a few more minutes of driving in circles around the city Jeff and I noticed that our brainiac driver was driving us down a pedestrian walkway surrounded by different shops and cafes. The pedestrian walkway ended at the central train station, and after yelling at a few more pedestrians, our driver learned that the local taxi cue was just on the other side of the station (presumably on the side where there is an actual road, not a pedestrian walkway). So what does our driver do? Put the car in park and leave Jeff and I in the car in the middle of the pedestrian walkway for nearly 10 minutes while he got directions. Oh, and to top it all off, where does he decide to park? Directly outside of the local police station! Let me tell you, I think I can relate to animals at the zoo, because so many people walking by stared at us like we were some sort of foreign creature.

While sitting in the car alone Jeff and I discussed the possibility of grabbing our luggage, throwing some money on the seat, and taking off to find a better cab. However, we have a lot of luggage and it was locked in the trunk so we decided to stay put. Finally our driver returned and proceeded to yell at Jeff and I telling us that we gave him the wrong address for the hotel. At this point, Jeff and I got a wee bit frustrated (after all, we had been traveling for about 24 hours) and said, "Well that's great, just take us to the hotel" as nicely as we could. We took off and headed towards what we hoped was the hotel.

After stopping a few more pedestrians, Jeff again pleaded with him to please just call the hotel. He again said it was not necessary as he knew where he was going. After stopping at another gas station for directions, Jeff implored him to just call the darn hotel, but he swore it was just two more kilometers up the road. After a tense few minutes, Jeff finally spotted the hotel and was able to direct the driver, who apparently didn't see it, to the hotel. As we turned onto the hotel's road, we took the time to point out to the driver that we were in fact on the same road that we had told him the hotel was on. He just got all frustrated and kept saying it was the GPS's fault. As we drove up to the hotel thoughts of a tip must have been swimming in his head, as he then tried to be very nice to us telling us we were staying at such a nice hotel, etc. Jeff and I just stayed quiet and eagerly awaited getting the heck out of the cab.

After over an hour and twenty minutes and a fare that was twice what it should have been, we were finally out of the cab, and we couldn't have been happier. While it was completely frustrating to be stuck in this taxi from you know where, at least we were able to get a "free" tour of downtown Gelsenkirchen!

A Truly Unique Experience

On Saturday Jeff and I spent the afternoon exploring Kaohsiung. I knew there was a minor basilica, Holy Rosary Cathedral, nearby, so of course we stopped in to take some pictures.

I swear we have a knack for finding weddings (but I guess that's what happens when you explore on Saturday afternoons)

During our visit we noticed that there was an English mass on Sunday, so Jeff and I decided we would go the next day. We arrived at church about 15 minutes early and took our seats. A few minutes later a woman from the church approached Jeff and I and asked if I would be willing to read the first reading. I was a little hesitant, but Jeff spoke up and said I would. I figured it couldn't be too bad; at least I knew the language! We were transplanted from our discreet seats in the back corner to the very empty front row! I was still a little nervous as I walked down the aisle with the priest at the start of the mass, but I thought, "hey, when am I ever going to be in church in Taiwan reading before a bunch of people who speak English as a second language!"

I got through my reading and had some time to relax and actually look around the church. Jeff pointed out that the church was full of Filipinos. Initially we weren't really sure why, but as we listened to the priest talk, we realized that they were primarily migrant workers here to earn money for their families back in the Philippines. Given the audience, the mass had a very different tone than others I have been to. It was really interesting to hear the priest encourage the migrant workers, but also warn them about dangers like infidelity. He even gave a long speech at the end of the mass reminding people that the minimum wage in certain sectors had been increased, so they should make sure to check their pay stubs.

All and all I realize that it was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I am so glad I took it. Incidentally, the prayers were slightly different than the ones we say in the US. I won't go into detail here, but if anyone is interested in some of the really cool difference, feel free to send me an email and I will gladly fill you in!

Where Are All Our Pictures?

Those of you that peruse all of our pictures on our Yahoo photo site may be wondering why we haven't posted pictures from our recent travels. In all honesty, I haven't had a chance to upload them, but that isn't the point of this post! I just found out that Yahoo photos will be closing, so Jeff and I will have to find a new website to post all of our travel pics. Yahoo recommended a few other websites, but we aren't really sold on any of them because they have very limited storage, and as you all know, we take a lot of pictures.

We plan on doing some research into other websites, and as soon as we set something up, we will post the link on our blog. And if anyone out there has their own photo website that they love, please let us know so we can look into it!

Greetings from Taiwan!

After a wonderful weekend at Adam and Katy's wedding, Jeff and I left for Kaohsiung, Taiwan on Tuesday. Jeff was here for two weeks before the wedding, and it looks like we should only be here about 10 days, so it's definitely a quick trip. After that it looks like we will be sent straight to another job in Europe.

From what I have seen so far, Taiwan is really cool. The city we are in really big (almost 1.5 million residents). There are a few taller buildings, but for the most part, the buildings are all about 6-7 stories high, and as large as a city block. Here's a few pictures from our hotel room.




We should have a little time for exploring, so hopefully we will post some more pictures soon!