Sunday in Orlando

Sunday the Rissers and I met Bryce at his church.  It was great to see where he worships and to meet some of his friends.  After working with Bryce for 3 years I am kinda maternal about him, so it was great to get to see that he is plugged into a good church that seems Biblically sound, has good older friends who are looking out for him, and that people there seem to realize what a fine young man he is and how he's going to impact their community for the better.  He actually joined the church during the morning worship service.

Here's a photo of him and the pastor.  It's from pretty far back and I didn't want to use the flash, so it's not the best photo, but eh...it's what I got! 

After church Bryce took the Rissers and I out for lunch to The Catfish Place.  It was a good meal and great company!

Deanna and me out front at The Catfish Place.

Deanna and Denise at lunch.

me & Bryce at lunch.

me acting silly while Bryce laughs at me!  :)

After lunch we went to Bryce's school to see his office and the rest of the campus.  He kept commenting on how small the campus is...he has no idea what a small campus is until he sees LCC!  :)

Palm trees by the entrance to the school...we're not in Lithuania anymore! 

Bryce Bow- Athletic Director and assistant basketball coach at Florida Christian College.

After touring campus the Rissers and I went to a suburb of Orlando to shop at a Ten Thousand Villages store and then we went back to the hotel room where we watched the Super Bowl and played games.  It was a great day!



Waiting for the Rissers

After the conference I drove back to Orlando to meet the Risser twins for a few days of rest and relaxation.  They were supposed to arrive in Orlando around 5:30, but due to snow issues in Detroit they were delayed about 5 hours.  I went ahead and checked into the hotel and tracked their flight online.  Once I saw that they were in the air I went and had some Chipotle for dinner, stopped at Wal Mart to buy some minutes for my phone and then picked them up around 10:30 PM.  I was grateful that Bryce let me borrow his GPS so that I could find my way to all those places in the dark! 

One of the beds in our hotel room.  Lithuanian chocolate on/in front of the pillows for the Rissers.  Courtesy of me, not housekeeping! 

The bathroom in our room.  It had a really high sink, which looked nice, but I wasn't sure how helpful it would be if you were travelling with children.  Luckily, we weren't.

My chicken burrito with guacamole at Chipotle!  Yummmm!

A lovely morning for a drive...

On Thursday I got up early and drove from Orlando to Tallahassee to the conference.  Part of the trip was pouring rain, but the last couple of hours it was beautiful...sunny skies and open roads!

Ah, the open road!  Driving is one of the things I miss most while in Lithuania.  The 4 1/2 hour drive was a fun way to start my day! 

Look at the sun!  :) 

A happy driver...notice that my eyes are on the road ahead, not looking at the camera!  :)

Dinner with Bryce!

I arrived in Orlando, FL on Wednesday evening.  After going through customs, getting my luggage, filling out paperwork for the rental car, etc I headed to the hotel and switched out of my wintery Lithuania clothes into attire more appropriate for the 80 degree sticky weather!  One of my former RAs (and dear friend) Bryce lives in the Orlando area, so he picked me up at the hotel and took me out for dinner.  I had a juicy, delicious hamburger and THREE big mugs of Diet Coke.  Ah, America!  :)  We sat and talked for a couple hours and could've gone longer, but I was starting to feel the effects of the early day and the 10 hour flight!

me and Bryce

Frankfurt airport

Normally I am just going between gates at Frankfurt and haven't really seen much of the airport.  This trip, since I had an overnight stay, I saw a lot more of the airport and was actually pretty impressed with it.  It's quite nicely decorated, layed out effeciently, and had a pretty speddy security system in place. 

Here are photos of a couple unique things I noticed about it...

McDonalds had NUTELLA in the condiment section with the jelly and ketchup packets.  My apples and grapes at breakfast were even tastier with nutella on them!  :) 

I thought it was funny to see a rather large display of "Smurf" figurines in one of the stores.  Are they popular in Germany?!  (And they were actually kind of expensive...those prices are in Euros, so multiply them by about 1.5!)

An evening in Frankfurt

I decided that since my room didn't have free wifi that I would need to go out to eat in order to not end up being a bit stir crazy!  :)  I asked at the front desk for the name of a good place to get an authentic German meal.  The gal at the desk told me of one and called a taxi for me.

A self portrait before my night on the town!  :)

 I went to Zum Schuetzenhof Kelsterbach for dinner.  This was the view from where I sat.  Charming, isn't it?  :)

I tried wild bore with gravy and cranberry relish and potato dumplings.

Look at the steam coming off the meal...HOT food.  

I don't know that I'd want to order it again, but I liked it well enough. 

Red sauerkraut.  

My mom fries ours, so this was a little less tasty than what I was expecting. 

Fried battered apple slices with ice cream...most delicious part of the meal!

Hotel Ibis

LCC's travel agent booked my hotel for my night in Frankfurt.  It was a very functional room...it was clean, small, and had everything I needed except a confortable bed!  Ah well, I still slept for 10 hours that night so it couldn't have been too bad, huh?  :)

The rock hard bed in my cute little room.

The tiny bathroom

If you look in the distance you can see a familar sign... "Aldi"!  Aldi is where I do most of my grocery shopping at home in the US, so it was fun to see it overseas.  When I saw it I remembered how someone had once told me that it is actually a German chain...true story.  :)

Flight to Frankfurt

On February 1 I headed to Florida for a conference.  My first day of travel consisted of a four hour bus ride to the airport in Vilnius and a short flight to Frankfurt.  The flight was only 2 hours long and my window seat had a spectacular view!  We see so little of the sun in Klaipeda these days that it was reassuring to be reminded that above the clouds the sun is still there shining brightly!  :)

I'm always impressed with the snacks on Lufthansa's flights within Europe.  On our short 2 hour flight we were served these tasty hot (warm) seasoned chicken wraps.  I wish flights in the US were as generous!