Tag Archives: photo dump

Hessen

Breckenheim Yard Sale 2026…

Today, our village had its annual yard sale. As usual, it was well organized and attended, with plenty of locals walking around, buying their neighbors stuff, and then enjoying wine, Brats, and ice cream. At one point, some guy rang our doorbell, wanting to know if he could park at the end of our street. Bill told him it was our landlord’s/neighbor’s decision, since it’s his property. He’s in Munich right now, though.

Bill and I didn’t really buy or sell anything, save for some strawberries that appeared to come from a local strawberry vendor. We did stop by the wine stand and enjoyed wine and ice cream. The ice cream vendor was friendly, and we were telling him about how we were hiding out from our government. He was sympathetic, and said Germans wanted to talk about it, but couldn’t really.

We also ran into the guy who has Stella, the awesome dog we met Friday night. He said hello, and tried out our neighborhood toilet, which I had lamented that I never seem to lock properly!

We saw our city manager, who is always attentive and shows up at every event. He brought a woman with him. I assume it was his wife. He may not appreciate Americans, because we can’t vote for him, but I do think he does a really good job. I’ve noticed an uptick of fun events since he got his job. It’s made Breckenheim an even better place to live.

The sale is set to go on until 4 PM, which is about 40 minutes from now. Below are some photos I took as we walked around…

I was particularly fond of the cat, who was friendly and looked like he or she wanted to hunt. Some German kids came over to ask what we were looking at while we were standing there at the creek. We answered in English, pointing out the cat… One girl was talking about the cat jumping, but that was about as far as I got.

I really love that our little community does these things, people show up, and they are very neighborly and friendly. We even ran into our neighbor, Massimo, who has always been so nice to us.

I know there will come a day when our time in Breckenheim will be in the past, but I am pretty sure it will always be a bright spot in my memories. We really lucked into a wonderful community. On another note, I saw some art I liked. I need more for our house. But maybe it’s better to find it on our trips.

Standard
Hessen, Sundays

Quick photo dump for the third week of March 2025…

I’m interrupting my Italy series for a quick photo dump of pictures from this week. We have some photos from our weekly market on Thursday. Bill and I picked up a few items for dinner, including chicken shawarma sandwiches from a new Syrian vendor we’d never seen before. The guy spoke English, was very friendly, and seemed delighted to talk to Bill about Doha, Qatar. As for the rest of the people at the market, they seemed to be giving us the side-eye more than usual. My guess it’s because they know we’re Americans and Trump is a major league asshole… Oh, and there’s also a photo of me in a Guinness hat Bill got at the drink market.

Charlie is glad to be home.

And then today, we went on post so I could buy makeup. Afterwards, I was feeling hungry, so we went into Wiesbaden and had lunch at the Ratskeller Biergarten. There, I had a Haxn Salad and a Hefeweizen. Bill had Tafelspitz (beef with horseradish sauce) and a Dunkel. Nice to see people and dogs out and about, flowers blooming, and open outdoor spaces! Our IKEA also set up a Swedish Easter decoration!

Standard
Champagne Bucket trips

Pictures from our 21st anniversary… part eight of our Armenian adventure!

As I mentioned in today’s earlier post, I’ve already written about the weirdness that occurred on our 21st wedding anniversary. I did a pretty good job covering that day, so rather than repeating myself, I’m just going to share more photos from our anniversary. I have already written the story, probably because I was a bit freaked out and upset, and writing helps me calm down and focus. But I didn’t share very many pictures at all in that rant… So I’ll share some photos and video with this post, with minimal commentary. If you want to read the gory details about our messed up anniversary, click here.

A view of the Hrazdan Gorge and Ararat Brandy Company.
Victory Bridge
The pathway through the Gorge we’d hoped to follow.
I think this is where my colleague, Liesel, taught.
“Tobacco harms your healts”…
The Pak Shuka was iconic, but now it’s a supermarket.
Hrazdan Stadium
Victory Bridge
Pretty shot of the Hrazdan River. Unfortunately, there is a lot of trash in the river.
I hope they clean up this river. It really is lovely.
See? Just clean up the trash…
Very sweet Armenian street dogs.
Crossing Victory Bridge
Armenian decorated bike

We tried to cross the street to go to the brandy factory, but the light wasn’t working properly. We got a green light, but cars still sped through the intersection. It wasn’t safe to cross there, so we walked the road down past the stadium.

At The Garden, a restaurant in Yerevan…
Mas Krug of German beer
Snacks before our dinner that evening
Handy and CLEAN public restroom… only 100 drams!
What’s going on at the Opera House!
Busker
Decent local beer
Street art
Where would you go in this thing?

A few hours after we went to “The Garden”, we had dinner at a highly recommended place called Sherep. It was just across Amiryan Street, steps away from our hotel. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great experience for us, although maybe we would have liked it if it hadn’t been our anniversary, and if we’d ordered beer instead of wine… Again, you can read the juicy details in last week’s post, linked above.

I made the mistake of trying to pour my own wine.
Sherep
Bill had cheesecake!
Eclair at the hotel! It was delicious!
At least the Square looked pretty!

I should have probably waited to write about our anniversary, but I was so aggravated and pissed off that I had to get it out of my system. But I was right when I wrote at the end of that post that the next day would be better. It was a prophetic statement. And even though it was a “weird day”, it certainly could have been much worse. At least we managed to walk several miles, and we made a friend in the food and beverage manager at the hotel.

A complimentary bottle of wine sent to us by the food and beverage manager, when I told her it was our anniversary… Such a nice and welcoming gesture!
Standard