July 18th - July 24th

Tuesday July 19
Another day of rain yesterday. It was on and off for most of the day but held off pouring long enough so that I could ride my bike up to the Wasgau because I was on the hunt for frischfleisch a.k.a. Hamburger. I realized when I went to order it that I couldn't order a pound so I just let the lady give me whatever amount and I weighed it at home :). I made meatballs and they turned out pretty good, thankfully Betty C. came to Germany with me. I also found a tablecloth to replace the hideous bright pink one!

As I was making my meatballs later that afternoon the doorbell rang and totally caught me off guard! Our first visitor! Well 1st I have to buzz the intercom to let them in then since I hadn't unlocked the front door I had to run downstairs to get the keys since you have to use keys on the inside and outside to lock/unlock. I open the door to find our landlady outside...i guess that was on ok visitor :) she brought over traps to hang on the tomatoes and plants to keep the bugs off. So we walked around the yard and to the garden where I think she and her husband said that we could eat the salad lettuce! Then she was drawn to the grill and patio set and kept commenting on how big they were...yes I know...we are American and have big things! They are nice though and she said that she was going to have her son call me since he speaks English very well. That would be good in case there is anything important that we need to know that we can't understand from them! I don't even know what their names are!


Wednesday July 20
More rain! Now we didn't move to London for Pete's sake! Yesterday was on again off again rain all day and i didn't take my umbrella on a walk...I guess I should just get used to carrying it everywhere. Now I will have to master the umbrella holding while riding a bike :)

I finally met one of our neighbors, not a German though! Her name is Bonnie and she is always walking her 2 dogs and we ran into each other around the corner and got to talking for a while. They are with the Military as are ALL of the other people on our street I learned! Hmmm, funny our immediate neighbors are all German it seems. Well it was good just to meet someone and have a person to talk to. Now that I'm actually getting the house to where I want it and I will have Internet to do research on Friday I will be able to get a life lol! This little town has about 60 different organizations we read online so I'm sure once I figure out what and where they are I should be able to have plenty do do.

We laughed the other day about me taking the bus because we don't understand the schedule yet so Dave suggested me getting on the bus and he following me in the car :). I think that would be pretty funny - now though I could just get on and see where I go since I have a cell I would just be able to call Dave when I get to where ever! Since I probably wouldn't know how to get back yet! I do know that the bus #136 does go into K-Town so I could just wait for that one and hop off where I saw familiar? I don't know if I'm that daring yet :)


Friday July 22
Finally a day yesterday with no rain, and hopefully today will be the same. Also today is INTERNET day!!! Yippee, back to being connected by the W.W.W. Thank goodness. It's also the same technician for phone hook up but we don't have a phone to hook up! Oh well it will be good just to have the Internet.

I visited the Rathaus which is the City Hall and got a lot of information on the town and surrounding area. I registered us in the town and got the info needed for the garbage/recycling program, got the train schedule, and picked up a calendar of events for the area. Festivals galore....these people must look for any excuse to have a festival :)

The garden is looking really good, I'm really unclear on how much we can enjoy it. I feel guilty enjoying the fruits of someone else's labor! I did cut out a head of lettuce the other day and it was sooooooo good! Some of the tomatoes look ready, beans are still really small. I'll weed today and pop out a few little cherry tomatoes, I'm sure they won't be missed! There are snails everywhere and slug type creatures too...I don't know what the heck the thing was stuck on the lettuce but i poked it off with a stick, it was 4" big! Gross.

I'm going to attempt to mow the yard today since it looks like rain and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, shocking. My sinuses are finally catching up to the new area. My head is cloudy and loopy and I've got the drippage-lovely. All the rain doesn't seem to help either? We move so much I never know what environmental factors play a part in my sinus problems! Oh well çe la vie!

Omg no Internet. We have our phone hook up but he didn't hook up the Internet. We are supposed to receive a router in the mail prior to the installation, well hopefully this doesn't take too much longer! I rode all around town looking for a phone but no luck, so we headed to the big REAL store after Dave got home. I finally got a radio, hair dryer, and flat iron so I can actually do my hair too :)

I successfully mowed the lawn all by myself and am pretty proud because I don't think I've ever done that without asking for help! Probably took me an hour since I'm OCD and have to have the lines perfect plus I had to empty out the grass container 3 times. Neighbor Bonnie brought her dogs, Layla and Buster over for a visit. They don't have a fenced in yard so we decided to have them come over once in a while so they are free from the leash!

Well I guess we will continue to watch Seinfeld seasons and movies that Dave brings home from the gym until we get Internet or tv!


Monday July 25
I can't believe we've been here for two weeks already! Well, two weeks here together anyway. The weekend was nice, no Internet still, so the research on weekend activities isn't really happening. I have area maps that I picked up from the Rathaus as well as a Rick Steves' book that highlights Germany really good.

Saturday morning Dave set out to find the converter that we've been looking for and he succeeded! We still have to be careful of the wattage though because they only convert 100 watts but the computer seems to work ok with it. While he was gone I took a bike ride around town and wound up at the cemetery in Alsenborn, it's really pretty actually. The graves are completely different than what we are used to seeing. I didn't take pics out of respect for all the people that were there maintaining their loved ones graves. I ventured up a trail a little farther to find a pet cemetery, complete with very well maintained little grave sites! I thought that was really special! It was locked though so I couldn't get in.

That afternoon we decided to try biking one of the many Nordic Walking Tours that are all around the little towns. Well little did we know that it was a very mountainous path in the forest! It's cool though that the different paths are all marked throughout the forest so you can't get lost, you'll end up someplace! Well we had enough of walking our bikes up steep hills and riding down the rough terrain that when we hit a main road we took the pavement back to town. Then we took a nice paved path called Pfälzer Land Radweg to a town NW of us called Mehlingen. Nothing too exciting in the town except the unbelievable scenery of the German countryside between the towns riding our bikes. It was really breathtaking. Saturday night we stayed in, read, played games and watched the rain!

Sunday morning we decided to head south to Baden-Baden, a high-class spa, casino town. It's a beautiful town with wrought iron balconies on 19th-century apartment buildings, and lots of shops and cafés on the cobblestone streets. We took the suggested walk in the tour book, enjoyed a lovely little lunch at Café Beeks and then headed to the well known Roman-Irish Bath (Friedrichbad) for an experience that we were sure we'd never forget. We knew going into it that it was a nude spa and on Sunday both sexes are mixed among the different rooms. We read that it was a classy and respectful ritual and you could tell that right from the sign in desk at reception but when we got there we chickened out! Haha we just didn't feel right with all of the other people waiting in the lobby at the same time...we decided that we just weren't ready for that yet and we will experience it sometime!

Next was a search for Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte a.k.a. Black Forest Cake since we were in the Black Forest it seemed like a must-do. The place we chose actually did not have the cake but the waitress said she'd surprise us with a different German dessert and it was yummy with apples, some kind of nuts, custard sauce and whipped cream. we headed home shortly after and it was a beautiful drive through the forest. We also drove through a small portion of France...my 1st time in France! We also drove through towns that had the old castle and ruins on top of the whole town - Bad Dürkheim and Frankenstein - it was a pretty cool sight.

At home we settled in for the night and started the Band Of Brothers series and I can't wait to watch that. I'm usually not one for War shows, movies, etc. but this is great (thanks Dan!) and I'm completely sucked into a Jody Picoult book (thanks Inga!) because I need to stay up past midnight reading!


LINK TO PICTURES FROM BADEN-BADEN