Guest updates...phew!

Well, Kat and Shawn left this morning so our first steady stream of guests is finished. It's now just me and Greg until next Friday when Mom and Dad arrive. It's weird to have the house so quiet. I've been spending the day napping, doing laundry, getting back to "normal", and reflecting on what a great time we had with everyone.

Some of Kat and Shawn's visit has already been posted (the failed Prague trip and our trip to Garmisch) and I'll post pictures and say more once they send some to me. Basically, we had a fantastic week together exploring the city. This was their first visit to Europe, so Greg and I did our best to show them around in style. In addition to what you already know, we saw castles, beer gardens, and some beautiful parts of the city. We even made Indian food for Karin and had a rousing game of Snorta (thanks, Tommi)! In the evenings, I pretty much passed out while Kat read and Shawn and Greg killed zombies. All in all a successful visit.

While Kat and Shawn headed for their ACTUAL trip to Prague, we had a fantastic weekend with MI Mary. She has been working in Nürnberg this past week and we were lucky enough to snag her for a few days. Again, as seems to be the trend with our guests, she took some fantastic pictures so I'll post those and say more as soon as I have them as well. Just briefly, I took the train up to Nürnberg on Friday so she and I could have a date up there before coming back to hang out with Greg. Being the fantastic friend that she is, she surprised me with a baby shower in the hotel room, knowing I would be unable to have one. IT WAS AWESOME! Not to mention completely unexpected and totally sweet of her. I had a great time opening gifts and getting descriptions of why each item would be necessary. We then had a fantastic dinner in the city and evening in the hotel. It had been so long since we had seen each other, it was great just to catch up. I was starving (again) once we returned to the hotel so I ordered a cheeseburger and we had our wine (and cheeseburger) date long into the evening, just like old times :) Probably the rest can be described along with the pictures. Here are some below and there are more to follow.

This is Mary sitting along the water for our dinner in Nürnberg. You can't see it here, but we ordered so much food that our waiter had to pull over an extra table because there was "kein platz!". It was absolutely hilarious. Not to mention the fact that when the waiter came to take our plates he eyed me and gave me the chance to snag a tortellini from Mary's before he took it away. He then held the plate and stood there waiting for me to take a little more. Ha!

Once we arrived in Munich on Saturday, we ran right into the Gay Pride Parade. Unfortunately, my pictures didn't turn out very well, but here you get an idea of some of the costumes we saw. It was fantastic...lots of fabulous music and LOTS of crazy outfits. What a great way to welcome Mary to the city!

Greg and Mary preparing the pasta salad for our Sunday picnic in the beer garden with Karin. We had a fantastic time enjoying the picnic (pasta salad, fruit salad, cheese, and crackers), drinking some beer, and playing Euchre. The two midwesterners teamed up against Karin and I (the East-coaster and the newbie Swede) and shockingly, Karin and I won. A good time was had by all.