What a hot hot hot couple of days it's been. So all of that complaining about the cold....well I'm pretty sure I jinxed myself! A nice drop in the humidity would be good. It's not the heat that's so bad it is the dew point and humidity levels that are above 90%! That is just too hot when you don't have air conditioning! Sunday Dave left for business for a few days and I headed to the overcrowded pool. I was such a good non-judgmental girl and just read my book and took a few dips. It was all I could handle there a few hours; I was burning over already burned skin. I got home showered and headed to the Alzenquella with Bonnie and Jeff for a nice dinner.
Monday I took Bonnie back to Landstuhl and we made a whole day of it. First she took me to the Volgeweh/Polaski base (to the Vet's office for the dogs ) but it was a neat experience for me because that is the base I was on when I was little! I wish I knew where exactly but hopefully next time. We headed to Rammstein base next so I could check out the PX/Mall and we could shop and get lunch. I made such a great purchase there....my Dirndl for Oktoberfest....and no pictures of it! Don't want to ruin the excitement! I love it! We ate lunch at the Macaroni Grill which was fun and a change from the German fare that I've become so used to. We headed back to St. Johannis for Bonnie's MRI which went good. She spoke with her doctor and is going to need to get cortisone shots so looks like I will be taking her back again most likely. Even though it was blazing hot I mowed when I got home because I didn't want to get off schedule! My grass is dryyyyyyy.....been watering.
Today I went to the big REAL store to be in air conditioning to get groceries...since Dave left me the Beemer...I've been doing all sorts of driving and it's just so fun! The autobahn does scare me a little when cars zoom by so freaking fast, especially since we've seen some scary looking accidents but I just stay in my lane! There are a lot of neat stores right around there where I found some cute scarves and then had a delish Döner- basically a gyro, at a Turkish kiosk outside the store. Again, it was blazing hot this afternoon but I decided to take a stroll in the woods and managed to get a little lost! It was nice though, the shade of the trees and the breeze through there just felt really nice. I found my way to a main road and just went that way back to Alsenborn, I didn't want to get "re" lost in the woods again. It turned into a nice 1 1/2 hr hike though! Well my Rick Steves' Ireland book came in the mail so I have some planning to do now!
Sunday August 28
Some cooler weather has come upon us, yippee! The week continued to be pretty warm but we welcomed the rain too. There was a pretty vicious thunderstorm on Wednesday as I was in Dave's office meeting with the HR rep to complete my residency paperwork. I ran to the car, getting drenched, and made my way downtown to buy a raincoat. Sure it was a little late for that day but it will surely come in handy! I had time to kill before picking up Dave from work and I also found a store to take Dave to get his Lederhosen for Oktoberfest! I can't go dressed up all alone! My dirndl is getting altered for the perfect fit! I went with Bonnie and her friend Doris on Thursday to a seamstress that does the alterations for the clothing store in town. She doesn't speak English but is super nice and is making my dirndl just right, she said it was a perfect dress for me, I'm so excited! She said that she could see me carrying 6 mugs of beer in each hand! Well I don't know about that but it will be fun to be all "authentic" for our Oktoberfest experience!
Doris wanted to take us to see her house in Enkenbach so we headed over there, met her husband Rudy, and shared a bottle of Sekt (champagne) with them which was what I thought was in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary that day but no, it's pretty typical for them to sit on their patio sipping champagne or homemade schnapps and enjoy their beautiful gardens! It was fun to talk with them because they are from the area and worked for Sembach for 40 years in various Military jobs, they had some good stories. When I got home from my afternoon happy hour I found that the Internet and phone lines were not working.....ugh. And it is still NOT working. That definitely is where life gets frustrating here with the language barrier. It's not like we can just pick up the phone and make a call to Telekom, we have to email the person who set it up, she contacts Telekom, they say everything is fine, she tells us that, well we then have to say that it's really NOT fine and that there is nothing else we can do. That is where we currently are, hopefully she can arrange for someone to come out and see what's wrong with the lines. What stresses me the most is that my blog post gets delayed!
On Saturday we headed a small town called Erbach where we stayed the night because we had a party to go to in Hiltersklingen for one of Dave's colleagues. It was a pre-wedding party for people who are not able to go to the wedding or were not invited. This is custom, which we thought was interesting! The party was at the groom's family farm. It was in a courtyard right next to the barn full of cows! They had a large beer tent and another party tent with a DJ and food (wursts, pretzels, brotchen and cheese). It was fun and we were able to chat and mingle with other team members from the office too. The most interesting part of the party though was another German wedding tradition of breaking china. When we 1st arrived we heard the sound of dishes breaking and that is exactly what it was...throwing old porcelain and china on the ground to wish the couple good luck! It is the couple's responsibility to sweep up all the broken dishes until midnight, which can be a bit of a challenge because once a pile is swept up anyone can come across and spread the pile out again! It was funny to watch, and I wish that we had some dishes to break!
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| After Joachim was done sweeping, someone cleared out his pile! |
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| This little man was too cute not to catch a photo with, I couldn't figure out what he was looking at though! |
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| Part of the castle and courtyard in Erbach. |
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| Castle tower in Erbach. |
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| Hotel Wappenstube in Erbach |
On the way we stopped quick at a Naturpark on the Neckar River where there were some castle remains above. We didn't climb up to them but they were pretty cool to see as we're just leisurelydriving along!
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| Trail map of the area we stopped at. |
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| Small castle ruin in the naturpark. |
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| Another part of the naturpark trails. |
The main goal was to explore the castle in Heidelburg. Dave had been to it prior to me getting to Germany but was definitely open to going back because it is a pretty cool castle! It has been preserved as a ruin and attracts over a million visitors a year even though it didn't even make Rick Steves' top 10 list! (probably because it is so touristy). Heidelberg is at the end of the Neckar Valley and the castle sits high above on a terrace of Königstuhl Mountain. We climbed the steep road and entered through the gate when I noticed that the castle seemed more modern and very well preserved. Later on the tour, and through the book we bought, we learned that many parts of the castle were destroyed by lightning fires and during the Thirty Years' War. Most of it was reconstructed in the late 1800's and shows different styles of Renaissance, Romantic and Gothic. We walked through the gardens and took in the panoramic views of the town from up high. We timed it just right for an English tour and were lucky that only about 10 people were on it. The tour guide was a lovely little German lady who did a great job as she took us through different buildings and explained the amazing architecture and statues that are everywhere on the grounds. The captions in the pictures have more details and explanations. We headed back down the hill to the town square that surrounds a church and is lined with shops and restaurants. We enjoyed a nice lunch outside (our fave Flammkuchen and Nizza Salat) then headed to the old bridge to get another view of the castle. It was a fun trip and only about an hour away from the house.
Heidelburg Pictures
Wednesday August 31 - DISCONNECTED
Ugh, the battles of the Internet and phone here! We still do not have a connection and Telekom has finally agreed that it is a problem on their side as we have NO DSL connection or phone connection and we didn't do a thing to cause it! So, thankfully we have a tech coming out to the house on Thursday between 9-2...good thing my schedule is pretty darn flexible! To top off the frustration of no connection to the outside world, my Sim Card did not automatically replenish so I have no minutes and no cell phone either! Eeeeeck! Did we mention how things are just a bit slower around here than what we are used to? Oh well, more time to find other things to do and babble on my blog.
It's hard to believe it's the last day of August, that we've been here for 2 months almost and that summer is about. It has still been nice and sunny but it is definitely cooler in the evenings and mornings. Tuesday I walked up to Enkenbach to the Rathaus to see about the different clubs in town that I could get involved with. It doesn't sound like volunteering is going to be as easy as I thought - plus I have a bit of a language barrier! I talked with Andrea at the TI about classes and activities that I could join and it sounds like we are getting a Zumba class, yippee!! There is a German class offered in a town nearby that I could do for a cost but hopefully we can get lessons set up through Dave's office...for free! Andrea was also nice enough to give me her # and invited me to walk the Nordic Trails with her and her friends. They go every M,W,F at 8:00. Today I joined them and it was fun. I rode my bike up to the meeting point at Andrea's friend Manuela's house. There were 6 of us total, them all with walking sticks in hand! We did about 5k through the woods and it was nice not to go through with my map or get lost. The others don't speak much English but that would surely be the way for me to learn German by joining them every week! It was fun to listen to them when Andrea and I weren't chatting. It was a good workout through the woods and they were all super nice. They even invited me for drinks on Monday night. I don't know if it is routine for them or if it's because there is some festival going on here this weekend? I thought that was really nice and I'm sure it would be fun. Well time to vacuum up all the debris that blows in the windows and hunt for the source of a weird smell downstairs!
And we're obviously connected again, yippee! Telekom managed to slice our line last Thursday, just our line! Ok so I survived a week, moving on again!
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