Now, I’m back in SD and things have quieted down. It’s time to say ‘adieu’ to 2011:

January. Awwh heck. We moved again! from snowy Michigan to sunny San Diego.

Our move doubled as cross-country road trip

with stops in Colorado to hit the slopes at Vail and A-Basin

road-side photo-ops,

and a night in Las Vegas to strike it rich.

February. We experienced plenty of gorgeous 70 degree days our first month in SoCal.

Between bike rides, surfing exploits and afternoons on the beach, we hatched a plan to start our own photography business. San Diego Home Photography was born.

By the end of the month we had landed our first shoot.

March. I made Kirk a double-layer cake from scratch for his 27th birthday.

We went hiking through Cleveland National Forest and I fell in love with my Vibram Fivefinger shoes. Thanks to them, now I run for fun. Seriously.

April/May. During the spring, a few more real estate shoots trickled in.

Kirk’s parents visited us from Michigan for a week. We took them to the San Diego Zoo.

At the end of April, Kirk and I made 10-day trip to Costa Rica to see Natalia and David,

to meet their daughter, Sofía,

and do a little surfing in Manuel Antonio.

June. Kirk’s younger sister Maureen flew out for a visit. We took her on a grand wildlife tour starting with the Point Loma tide pools,

Seal Beach,

and lastly the Safari Park.

Near the end of June, Kirk and I headed east for a few days of camping in the Anza-Borrego Desert.

July. We had two of our largest shoots this month. Incidentally, one of them proved the most dangerous as well. Thanks to a faulty outdoor propane fireplace, Kirk came milliseconds away from a human torching.

August/September. I made the big decision to write a book. To embark on this project, I took a hiatus from California and spent seven weeks back in Wisconsin.

I chatted away many afternoons with my Omi. We talked about her past, how she met my Opa, and their immigration to the United States.

In addition to writing, I squeezed in lots of activities with my family including Summerfest,

pool time,

and a night downtown Milwaukee.

October. My parents and I flew to Germany to celebrate the 50th anniversary of my great aunt and uncle.

The party served as an extended family reunion too. Here’s me and my second cousin Britta,

and my mom with her first cousins.

Besides the party, we sight-seed ourselves out. We toured Bremen,

gaped at the Cologne Cathedral,

cruised the Rhein,

explored Koblenz,

and drank lots of wine. (And my Mom and I went to Paris too! The posts are coming soon!)

November. Kirk and I tried our hands at the export business: shipping motorcycles to Costa Rica. Will it be profitable? We’re still waiting to find out…

December. The holidays. It’s a tradition in Kirk’s family to go out for dinner on Christmas Eve. We ate and enjoyed the sunset at Pacifica Del Mar, a seafood restaurant with an ocean view.

The Berrymans flew in to San Diego to spend the end of the holidays with us. Together we said goodbye to 2011 and welcomed in 2012. ☼

Lauren Schroeder, please wait while we locate your itinerary… read the screen.

Thirty seconds had gone by. Next to me, two people had already checked in, printed their boarding passes and left for their gates.

A service agent saw me floundering. ”Do you need help ma’am?”

“Yeah, the computer isn’t finding my ticket. Could you tell me flight number for the flight to Milwaukee?”

“We don’t fly to Milwaukee, ma’am.”

“What?”

“American Airlines doesn’t fly to Milwaukee. Are you sure you’re flying with American?”

Uhh…

“Are you sure your destination isn’t maybe Chicago? We fly there.”

Uhh…

Could I have booked my ticket to Chicago? It’s not out of the ordinary for me to fly to Chicago and then hop a bus to Milwaukee. Tickets are often cheaper and Kirk’s rental property is there, so we make stopovers in Chicago pretty regularily… But not this time… No. This time I was going to see my family – in Wisconsin - I know I booked my ticket to Milwaukee… Right??

“Here, let me see if I can look you up. We do have some limited acess to other airlines’ databases… What’s your last name?”

“Uh, okaay… Schroeder?”

CLACK CLACK CLICKITY-CLACK. “Is your first name L – A – U – ?”

“Yeah, that’s me…?”

“Okay, here we go. You’re booked on a US airways flight to Milwaukee. You need to go down the stairs and all the way to the other end of the terminal.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. I got the airline wrong?

I left the counter, mouth still agape at my own brainlessness.

Very suave. You really nailed that one, didn’t you.

All I could do was laugh at myself. ☼

My parents and I, however, had no car. We didn’t rent one either. To travel the 60km, we took the scenic route: a 6-hour riverboat cruise down the Rhein.

Dad and I (and Mom, taking our photo) had the entire upper floor almost to ourselves. Only a few other people came aboard with us in Koblenz, the first stop of the trip.

Our boat, the Goethe, was an authentic paddle wheeler. I didn’t realize this until midway into our journey when I went downstairs in search of the bathroom and walked past the windows to one of the wheelhouses. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said aloud.

We saw so many castles. Two dozen of them or more, perched high on bluffs overlooking thousand-year old towns.

We passed the famous Loreley, a rock that shoots almost 400 feet into the air. Between Switzerland and the North Sea, this is the narrowest point of the Rhein. Many boats have sunk here due to the strong rapids and rocks just beneath the surface.

About four hours in, the rain started. We scooted back inside and ordered lunch. How German is this?

And of course, dessert and coffee.

This apple strudel Mom ordered was absolutely delicious.

All of a sudden, it was time for us to disembark. “Next stop, Bingen,” came over the loudspeaker. We had just spent six hours on a boat.

How terribly slow six hours can trickle by when you’re zooming along in a car. But on a boat, paddling along at a snail’s pace, six hours can slip by just like that. ☼

Gondola rides get my adrenaline pumping. Know what else gets me excited? Knowing a secret.

“Gondola number 17 has a glass bottom,” whispers my cousin Britta.

“Only 17? Why not the others?” I ask.

Britta shrugs. “It’s special.”

We’re waiting in line to get on gondola number 17. But we’re not actually in line, we’re off to the side.

“Can we do this? Just jump in line to get on 17?” I ask.

“Normally they don’t like it,” says Kati, my cousin Patrick’s girlfriend. “But I work here. We’re allowed.” She grins.

We count the cars as they come around. Twelve … thirteen. They’re sooo slow … fourteen. Come on. Fifteen.

All of a sudden, a bunch of boys rush up. Sixteen goes by. They flank us. “Seventeen! We have to get on seventeen!” they say to each other. They know.

Seventeen swings around. Britta and I stride toward the door. A couple kids manage to scurry in front of us. They quickly sit down on the glass viewing platform and spread their arms out in an attempt to save seats for the rest of their cronies.

I walk around and plop myself right in between them. Britta grabs the other side. We look across at each other and smile triumphantly. Nice try, punks.

Look at the glee all over my dad’s face. And he wasn’t even looking through the glass bottom.

Gondolas are fun. Even without the skiing.

By now you’ve probably figured out that I’m not riding this gondola to the top of a snow-capped mountain. Actually, I’m on my way to look at flowers.

For 2011, the city of Koblenz received the honor of hosting the famous Budesgartenshau, Germany’s national horticulture show. Some of the exhibits were located in the city center, but the largest exhibit was located across the Rhein river on top of Ehrenbreitstein mountain.

Sure, a flower exhibition isn’t the adrenaline-pumping thrill I expect and the end of a gondola ride. But that’s not fair to the flowers. They put on a good show. There were acres of them; so colorful and gorgeous. And a handful of them actually freaked me out a little. Seriously, what the heck is this?

I didn’t even know half of these plants existed. So! Many! Flowers! The designers of the show must’ve anticipated flower fatigue. How thoughtful of them to add space-oddessy (?!) chairs to the walking paths.

Besides the flower show, the top of Ehrenbreitstein afforded a sweeping view of Koblenz and the Deutsches Eck. The “German Corner” is a pointy piece of land formed by the Mosel river joining the Rhein.

This was big. The Deutsches Eck is like Germany’s version of America’s Four Corners. Must have a photo of this. Or two. Or three.

Look at these parents of mine. I don’t know who told the joke, but finally! Non-camera smiles! (Factoid: their 29th wedding anniversary was just a few days prior to this.)

Down we go. ☼

It was chilly out, at last. Not that I wanted the cold, but it was more fitting, considering the season. It had been 70+ degrees out during our days on the vineyard and in Bremen. Now, Germany had finally realized it was October.

Gudrun and Tomas dropped my parents and I off at our hotel in Cologne. After a few hours spent napping/decompressing/recuperating in the room, we opened the curtains to find the sun had set.

A 10-minute stroll along the Rhein brought us downtown. Cafes and restaurants lined the squares, monopolized street corners and filled alleyways. We found a reasonable joint and split two dishes between the three of us: a chicken burger and an arugula salad. Mom had a merlot. Dad had a Kölsch, a specialty beer unique to Cologne.

Next to us, a girl and a couple guys smoked cigarettes and drank espressos. After the server gave us our bill, one of the guys waved her over. “Kann ich eine Decke bitte?”

What? He just asked the server for a blanket. Where were we? First class cabin, Lufthansa?

I looked around. A handful of other patrons had fleece blankets wrapped around their shoulders. The server came back with a blanket embroidered with ‘Cafe Extrablatt’. “Danke,” said the guy, draping it around himself.

“Well I’ll be damned. That is cool. I wish our restaurants gave us blankets.” Ha! Could you imagine? Snapping fingers, Uh, waiter? A quilt please?

After our light dinner, we walked a few blocks further to the Cologne Cathedral.

This is no modest church. At 516 feet, its one of the tallest in the world. (The tallest, a protestant church in Ulm, Germany, is only 14 feet taller.)

The next day we returned to the Kölner Dom for better interior photo ops. But first, we grabbed breakfast right next to the cathedral square.

At the cathedral, tourists poured in and out like a tidal flood. Many wore headphones, listening intently to their audio tours. Others followed real life tour guides around. We decided against the tours, opting instead to read the terribly boring complimentary brochure. Sneakily, I eased among the fringe of one tour group and strained to hear something interesting. I found out the ceiling used to be painted the color blue. Together with the gold stars still attached, the ceiling was supposed to replicate the night sky.

If you find yourself visiting the Cologne Cathedral and you fancy facts and figures, go for the tour. Learning about the ceiling’s former hues is mildly interesting, but in my opinion, the way to get the most bang for your buck is to grab a seat in a pew, and then, look up. ☼