Search Results for: bamberg

The Christmas Market in Bamberg, Germany.

AvaGerman Cities

The Christmas Market in Bamberg, Germany was nothing short of enchanting.  We first visited in the evening with one of Mr. Meena’s bosses and loved it so much we took the train back to enjoy it again the next week. We were quickly drawn to the smell of German bratwurst at the Christmas Market.  The Bamberger Bratwurst is two long sausages on a slightly shorter bun; they are currently my second favorite bratwurst variety (after the Nuremberger bratwurst).  Food in […]

Do’s and Don’ts: Our First Impressions of Bamberg, Germany.

AvaGerman Cities

Bamberg is a thirty minute ride down the train tracks for us, so we didn’t try to accomplish all our sightseeing in one day.  It was bustling with activity when we visited, which isn’t all that surprising considering its university and the city’s claim to fame as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  One of the first things you’ll learn if you start researching Bamberg is that is has seven hills and seven churches on each hill.  I wasn’t able to […]

Expat Living in Schweinfurt, Germany (from 2016).

AvaExpat Life

Three years ago I was living in Germany and eager to share my experiences with the world.  I was going on seven months as an expat and I jumped at the chance to join an expat interview series by a popular blogger.  Last month I discovered that the interview was taken down (thanks to my broken link checker – such a useful tool).  I don’t want my work to be wasted, especially when it’s so hard to work with chronic pain, so […]

Visiting the Baumwipfelpfad Steigerwald – an Incredible Treetop Path in Bavaria, Germany.

AvaEurope

A little over a year ago I had the great pleasure of visiting the Baumwipfelpfad Steigerwald in Bavaria with a dear friend of mine.  You may be asking, “The Baumwipfelp… uh, what?”  Well, “Baumwipfelpfad” is German for treetop path and “Steigerwald” is simply a region of Germany, which includes the Steigerwald Nature Park.  But the term ‘treetop path’ doesn’t fully describe just how awesome this attraction truly is. Visiting the Baumwipfelpfad Steigerwald. The Baumwipfelpfad Steigerwald is located in Ebrach, which […]

2016 Yearly Digest.

AvaBlog

We had a rough start to 2016.  Mr. Meena and I ushered in the New Year from our hotel in Schweinfurt, Germany while trying to understand why all the Germans were watching an obscure British skit. January 1st marked four months since we had arrived in Germany and I was still struggling to adjust to life there.  I hadn’t made any friends in our small German town (Mr. Meena had his friendly coworkers, fortunately) and I felt like moving abroad […]

One Year Without: What We Gained by Owning Less Stuff.

AvaExpat Life

This is the final post in the blog series One Year Without.  See all of the posts here. This blog series has been about what we lived without as expats.  We gave up our vehicles, community, and plenty of the smaller comforts of home when we moved to Germany.  Owning less stuff pushed the boundaries of our comfort zones and there were even a few items that were too difficult for us to go without.  But overall, giving up the majority of our belongings […]

A Day in the Life: Expat in Small Town Germany.

AvaExpat Life

“A day in the life” posts have become really popular on Imgur (an online image sharing community); people all over the world have been taking photos throughout a normal day of their life and sharing them.  The Imgur blog said the following about this idea: As we go about our daily routines, we rarely stop to consider how fascinating our lives may be to others. Our homes, the commute to work or school, what we have for dinner, and how we […]

10 Reflections on Having Family Visit Us Abroad.

AvaExpat Life

We spent 226 days in Germany before we had our first visitor.  And after the first one arrived we had a flood of them; our rotation of various Meena family members lasted for 29 out of 44 days from start to finish.  After all this time by ourselves in a foreign country it was a bit startling to suddenly have family around again.  There were all sorts of emotions to process as we prepared for the visits, spent time with […]

Love Locks in Germany.

AvaGerman Cities

Germans aren’t exactly known for being romantic, but all the love locks throughout the country would suggest that there is plenty of romance going on in the land of beer and sausage.  The tradition of love locks has been around for a century or so but Europe didn’t start seeing them in large numbers until the early 2000’s.  While they are meant to be a sweet gesture or symbol of lasting love, the locks have caused quite a controversy in some places.  Fortunately we’ve […]

Street Art / Graffiti in Germany.

AvaGermany

I expected to see strange things during our life in Germany, but I can’t say that prolific graffiti was one of them.  At first it was startling to see street art and/or graffiti on nearly every surface.  The paint isn’t just on the  buildings and walls, it’s on the streetlights, the electrical boxes, even the commuter trains.  According to the The German Way, the issue of graffiti in Berlin alone causes 35-50 million euros of property damage annually. Some cities actually provide […]