Happy Halloween!

We're off to...

The Frankfurt Temple.

We'll be back tomorrow. 

A car for Kaylee.

Three Cheers for Wine!!!

The German Recipe for Guaranteed Happiness:

1. Wine...the more the merrier!

2. Bratwurst in a barrel

3. Whole-Rotisserie Pig

4. Medieval Parades with Trumpeters

5. Street plays about middle-aged women and their Brüste (no need for translation)

6. Chubby German men singing American songs in bad accents making the German women dance like its the best thing they've ever heard

7. More wine!!!

A Trip to...

Speyer

Taking the advice of one of our friends, we headed off to this small town just West of Heidelberg.  After the run-down train station and the streets filled with Turkish teenagers spitting every other step, we weren't too impressed.  Luckily, the closer we came to the old part of town, the better it got.

Fancy House

 Speyer High School

Downtown Speyer and the Pilgrim 

(marking the old pilgrimage path to the burial of the apostle James in Spain)

The Cathedral and other Churches

Despite our first impression, Speyer turned out to be pretty great.  Not to mention, they had the cheapest Gelato yet.

Beethoven in Bonn

Bonn is not only home to our best German friend, Anna, but also to our good friend Ludwig van Beethoven.

 And although we love Beethoven, we do not love him enough to pay for a tour of his old home, so this was the best shot we could get of his old pianos.  In case this makes you feel a little Beethovenish, here is our favorite one of his songs:

After we were all Beethovened out, we wandered through the city to the old church...

The unfinished puzzle...

all before catching the train back home to Heidelberg.

Picture of the Day.

Did you know...

...that the Dragon-fruit really exists? I always thought it was made up, like Dragon-fruit flavored shaved ice,  maybe for advertising purposes to sell it to people like Jessie.

Not Quite the Nightlife.

(Video taken in Köln)

Even though all of Mike's classmates tell us where all the great nightlife is at, we just haven't yet found time to check it out. So other than fhe and institute at the church building I would say this is about the closest we've come to experiencing the German nightlife so far. 

Favorite Thing We Saw All Weekend!

We are sure glad this little Harvard graduate remembered his visor this bright October weekend.  Recent research shows that skin cancer is now the number one killer of dogs.

We Often Go Walking

We walk a lot around here, but on Sunday we went for our first leisurely walk around our neighborhood. Even though it's pretty cold there are millions of flowers in bloom right now. It was a perfect break in between 4 sessions of conference in one day.