"In Hell"

Yep, that’s where we went today, and boy was it beautiful. The small village of Hallstatt located in the lake district of the Austrian Alps. Before you worry too much about my calling this place hell, I’ll tell you the story. So Hallstatt has been a salt mining town since prehistoric times. In the 1800’s, some of the workers nicknamed the canyon that they had to travel through to get to the mines “In hell” because it was so steep and treacherous and people sometimes died while coming down its river carrying salt mining supplies.

We came to Halstatt by bus and train from Salzburg. It was a gorgeous bus ride, but we were pretty tired during it because we got up at 5:30 to be able to maximize our time here. We had a crazy experience when checking out of our Salzburg youth hostel. We came down to the office to check out, and the guy at the front desk was asleep in his chair. We rang the bell. Nothing. We tried talking to him. We rang the bell multiple times. Still nothing. We started yelling, “WAKE UP!” and Wayne picked the bell up and rang it next to his face multiple times. He opened his eyes and just looked at us. We began telling him that we needed to check out now because our bus was leaving soon. He was completely unresponsive. He just looked at us and closed his eyes again. It was bizarre. Finally Wayne got so fed up that he walked behind the desk to the man and picked up a pen and piece of paper and wrote a note saying who we were and that we were checking out. He left it there and finally as we were walking out the door, the dude picked up the note, kinda chuckled and said, “Yeah that’s fine.” Totally weird.

The first thing we did in Hallstatt was ride the ferry across the lake to the town. The train drops you off on the other side of the lake, so a ferry comes to pick you up. It’s totally radical. We then went and found an amazing little café/bakery and got some eggs on ham and some really good bread. By the way, this town is tiny. There is one main road that goes through it, and “main” is really quite an overstatement. The road is like 12 feet wide. And there all these cute houses and shops off to the sides. And then it’s right next to this glassy lake, which is in turn surrounded by gorgeous peaks of the alps. It is unreal.

We next went to the Salt Mine that is above the town. We had a tour and it was really cool. It was annoying though because the lady would speak for like 5 minutes in German, and then follow up with like a few sentences in English. But it was still really awesome to go deep into the mountain side and walk through little caverns and stuff and see how the salt was mined.

Next we hiked up from the mines to the top of Hohe Sieg (which means "high victory"). We peak bagged baby! We got to the very top of a mountain in the alps! It was an incredible view from up there. You could see all of Lake Hallstatt and the various little towns that surround it. Beautiful. Oh, we also saw the largest ant hill I’ve ever seen in my whole life on the hike. Check out the pic.

[technical difficulties.  due to slow internet in our current locale, we are unable to upload photos at this time.  Please check back later.]

By the time we got back down our legs were dead. We went to our hostel, rested for a bit, then went to the beinhaus or bonehouse. It is this house by the church where they have bones and skulls pilled up dating back to the 1700’s. There’s like 1000 skulls stacked neatly just staring you down. They have the names of the person painted on them, along with other symbols. It was kinda creepy, but kinda cool.

Lastly, we had a killer dinner of gourmet pizza and fresh fish and then finished off the day with a few rounds of darts. They have a sweet electronic dartboard here at the hostel. It’s bomb.

I’m gonna zonk.

Peace be with.

-N.

Quote of the day: from the jovial, mustachioed guy who runs our hostel and the pizzeria downstairs. Every time we said thank you to him, he responded: “My welcome.” He also brought out three shots of brandy to our table after dinner, “a gift to you, on the house.” It was such a warm gesture that we felt bad declining. So we drank them. Just kidding.

Half Shakespeare.

Oh, guys, awesome day, very little time. 

Residenz Museum: the old palace from the 1500’s to the 1900’s of the ruling family of Bavaria.  Collection of four centuries’ worth of amassed opulence.

Neue Pinakothek:  collection of art from the 19^th century, including Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Klimt, and lots lots more.  Really rad. 

Pizza.  Train to Salzburg.  We’re getting up early tomorrow so we’re just going to bed.  Besides, people go to bed early here.

Quote of the day comes from a worker at the Residenz Museum in Munich.  He walked up to Nate and started speaking German, then realized Nate was understanding nothing and said, “English? (Nate nods.)  Okay.  You must follow these . . .” he trailed off, gesturing to the arrow signs, then continued emphatically: “Follow them at every day.”  Then he asked, apparently in reference to his own English, “Is this good?”  Nate, of course, said Yes, yes.  The man pointed to his name tag.  “Half Shakespeare.  Half Robert.”

-W is the new X.

--Here, we’ll do a code this time, since the town we’re going to tomorrow might be hard to find by description alone.  Its name is:

Gzkkrszss.

Or something like that.  The key to decoding it is in this blog post.

Just so you know, the answer should rhyme with “ball snot.”

We HEART Munich.

Today was full to the brim.  We had breakfast at the hostel, and get this:  we ran into Jorge and Natasha, some really simpatico Uruguayans who Wayne met in London.  Then we went to the hauptbahnhof and took a train and a bus to Dachau.

Dachau was the first concentration camp in Germany, built in 1933.  It was a heavy, somber place.  Even the weather seemed to parallel the sadness embodied in the camp.  Tiny raindrops hung suspended in the air, rendering an umbrella pointless.  The sky was masked with solemn grey clouds.  The museum was very educational; we especially enjoyed the information about the years leading up to Hitler’s reign.  We were silent as we walked around the camp, contemplating the intense suffering that occurred there.  Several beautiful memorial buildings, structures, and sculptures now exist in Dachau.  My favorite was a long row of beautiful flower wreaths.

Next we went to the Deutches-Museum, which was bomb.  We had barely over two hours there, but we could have used twenty!  It’s overflowing with cool exhibits.  We were happy with the way we spent our time.  The planes and boats were my favorite.  A worker saw Wayne taking a picture of the first German U-boat, and we thought he was going to reprimand us, but he glanced around and told Wayne to climb over the barrier and actually get in the U-boat and ride the missile like a horse so we could get THAT on camera.  Germans are pretty rad.

We took the S-bahn to the BMW headquarters, were we bummed around BMW-welt for a while.  The museum had closed, but we still got to browse around an awesome huge building full of awesome BMWs. 

By this time we were pretty tired, so we decided to go to a movie.  We got our tickets, then went up the street to get some Doner Kebabs for dinner.  They were about seven hundred times better than the Hofbrauhaus fare last night. 

So this is a shout-out to my roomies:  guess what movie I went to, in Germany, with my two older brothers??  LAST SONG!!  Yep.  That’s right.  No worries, it was in English.  There we were, totally digging some good ol’ Miley Cyrus after a long day.  Seriously, we loved it.  I was crying, like, actual tears rolling down my face.   I miss you girls!

Quote of the day, by Wayne, after noticing that we could see the old-school projector up in the projection room of the tiny theater where we saw the flick: “I feel like I just walked into the 1960s . . . with Miley Cyrus.”

-A

--Okay, boys, tomorrow we will take a train to the birthplace of Mozart.  In fact, it’s in a different country, although they speak German there.  The first four letters of this city’s name are also in our last name, and its remaining four letters are the word that means “castle” in German.

Dachau.

In the U-bahn station.

At BMW World.

This is where we got Döner Kebabs.

This movie was trite, predictable, and manipulative.  And I unabashedly loved it.

-W.

Munich loves you.

That's the city's official motto, and I must say the feeling is mutual.  I just love this place.  I just feel great in this place.  Don't be surprised if we stay here more days.

Munich.  Debbie brought us to the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof and by noon we were on a train to Munich.  It was sad to say goodbye to the Burts and Chester.  (I don't know what it is about this trip, but all of a sudden I really feel like I could love having a dog.  And you know I've never really felt like that before.  It's  . . . magical.)

The train toward Munich was packed with youths, and we asked some of them what the big deal was, and they said they'd just gotten out of school; they go to university in Ulm and commute home.  Some nice kids told us some of the best sights to see in Munich.

I just can't tell you how much I love Munich.  We didn't even really do anything today-- most of the purportedly AWESOME museums were closing down by the time we got here, so we just walked to the main square (Marienplatz) and watched the tourists watch the clock tower play.  There was this great accordion/clarinet duo playing in the platz.

We took the U-bahn to the English Gardens, Munich's Central Park but bigger, and walked around.  They're great, they feel just unmanicured enough.  And there is a place where a stream comes into the park from under the road and somehow creates this perpetual wave, where surfers come and ride back and forth across the stream.  Way cool.

Next we went to the Hofbräunhaus, a fabled traditional beer hall.  Somehow, though, we ended up in the part of the building with all the Japanese tourists.  They loved the lederhosen-clad brass band and the awful singer and the alpenhorn players.  Heck, who am I kidding: we did too.  The alpenhorners were actually, legitimately incredible.  I ordered a non-alcoholic beer, and I didn't love it.  There was a buffet of pigs' feet and pork roast and knodel and other assorted Bavarian foods.  Overall, it was an experience.

Still, I love Munich.  Down the street from our hostel is an international phone calls shop where all these African guys hang out, in the store, outside it, down the street-- it's like this gathering place for African guys, just hanging out and chatting with one another, and, presumably, their loved ones a continent away.  Way cool.

Wir lieben Ihr.  I think that means we love you.  I don't know about anything in German for sure because every time I feel confident enough to say a phrase from our phrasebook to a German, they just respond to me in English without missing a beat. Except the AWESOME accordion player from the Marienplatz who we saw there AGAIN as we walked home under twilight.  Just sitting there playing Ave Maria and Toccata and Fugue on the most incredible accordion I've ever seen.  We tried talking to him in English-- no go.  I spent a few minutes wrestling in my mind before I could say something to say to him in German, but he just kind of smiled and kept playing, as if to say amiably, Hey, I'm Here To Play My Accordion, Not Give You A Cultural Experience.

The riddle will have to wait until tomorrow.  We'll just be in Munich anyway.  Love.

-W.

Schönaich

Saturday

We slept in.  In fact, we didn’t change out of our pj’s till after noon.  But we got some planning in – that is to say, we actually decided where we are going from here.  It was a good day to sleep in anyway, because most things were shut down due to the fact that Germans take their May Day seriously.  At around 1:30 the three of us took off walking toward the center of Schoenaich, the Burt’s village.  We passed the “schönaich” (beautiful oak) itself on our way to the fest by the May Pole.  The way to celebrate in this land is by eating wurst and, more importantly, drinking beer.  At the little fest in the town, we ordered some wurst and drank some … appleschorle (it’s like apple beer but milder and better.)  The teenage boy who gave us our wurst explained to Wayne what his schweinsteak was: “it’s from the neck of a pig.”  He looked like Zac Efron.

Schönaich’s fest was just a preview of the REAL fest in Stuttgart.  We swung by Claralyn’s soccer game and picked her up on our way.  The fest was like a county fair, but better because it was German.  There were booths and rides – we rode one almost exactly like “Colossus” at Lagoon – and lots of Biergartens.  Apparently people get beer for half the price if they are dressed in their traditional German liederhosen.  The drinking age here is 14!!?!

Sunday

Church with the Burts was nice.  Afterwards we went to Schloss Solitude, which overlooks Stuttgart.  There was this big flock of sheep with a shepherd and sheep dog grazing on the lawn.  Apparently that’s not uncommon around here.

We also visited the Stuttgart rubble heap, where they piled all the debris from WWII.  Now it’s a big grassy hill, but there is still rubble visible at the top, and a great 360-degree view.  We were amazed at how difficult the reconstruction of this country must have been after the war. 

We are currently in the throes of an intense game of Carcasonne with Claralyn and Ben.  It looks like Nate is going to win.

-A

The weekend in Photos

I know we haven't put up photos for a while, so here's the last few days.   ARE YOU READY??

Thursday: Trier, Metz, Ramstein

Trier: The Porta Nigra, a Roman gate.  Check out my beard.

The accident.  Debbie remained so calm.  The cops came so quick.

Cool organ guy in Metz.  Anne asked him to play Bach and he did, from memory.  

Chagall: Adam and Eve in stained glass.  in Metz.

Also in Metz:  the McDonald's has codes on the bathroom doors.

BXPX: the mall in Ramstein US Air Force Base.  The bases are a world unto themselves.

Alsace, France

Outside Haut-Koenigsbourg.  Misty, foggy, medievaly day.

Haut-Koenigsbourg.

Sooooo many halberds.

Can you see it in the background?

Abandoned castle probably somewhere in eastern Gondor.  RAD.

Eating crepes in Riquewihr.  I don't think you can tell, in this photo, how pretty that girl was.

Annie in Riquewihr.  Who cares that it's raining?  There's Debbie on the right.

Riquewihr.  This guy seriously had the stereotypical French laugh.  Spoke no English but he was charming about it.

Schönaich/Stuttgart

Beautiful cemetery in Schönaich, where every grave has flowers PLANTED on it and well cared for.

We found this while wandering around the town.  Go Jazz.

The Fest in the village.  Zac Efron in the background.

Chester, the Burts' dog, who we all completely and totally love.  He's such a good dog.

The Stuttgarter Frülingsfest.  One of the colorful bursts on the wall exclaimed "Be inspired!"

More Fest.  Rollercoasters in the rain = AWESOME.  Also, Claralyn told us there's a big Turkish community in Stuttgart.

Yep.

Sunday in Stuttgart

Here's the Burt family at Schloss Solitude, overlooking Stuttgart.  Claralynn, Ben, Dave, and Debbie.  We love these people.  A lot.

Here's the herd of sheep we found at the top of the hill grazing around the Schloss, plus Ben and Claralyn hanging out with them.

On top of the rubble hill overlooking the city.

At the end of the Mother Of All Carcassonne Games.  The Burts are just fun.  I kind of feel like they're our cousins.

--Tomorrow:  We're leaving the warm nest of the Burts' house and striking out once again into the cold wilderness of independence . . . after Debbie gives us a ride to the train station.  Next we're headed to a city whose name is derived from the German word for "Monks", because it was founded by a group of Benedictine monks in 1158 AD.  More recently, it hosted the Summer Olympics back in the '70s and is home to one of the soccer clubs playing in the finals of this year's European club championships.  It's the host to the headquarters of the BMW car company.  It's gonna be dope.

Alsace.

Well folks, we made it safe and sound into Stuttgart.  The Burts are all as cool as their mom, and we sat around last night drinking orange juice and drinking pistachios and talking and laughing until it was time for bed.  It feels really nice to be in a home again.  Theirs is a gorgeous one with beautiful design that mixes a modern feel with traditional deutsch elements in a tiny village on the outskirts of the Stuttgart metropolitan area. 

Oh man, it was a cool day.  We didn't actually end up going to the Schwarzwald, though we drove past the edge of it.  Instead we left Ramstein Air Force Base, one of the largest US bases in Germany (there is a mall there called BXPX), and headed for France.  This border region along the Rhine river is really beautiful and famous, lots of picturesque landscapes and little town.  Our first stop was at the top of a densely wooded hill, a castle called Haut-Konigsbourg, restored in the early 20th century by Kaiser Wilhelm as a symbol of German imperial power (and lost to the French after World War I).  That was really cool, but the coolest part was this other castle, further along the ridge of the hill, which had NOT been restored, it was just these overgrown medieval ruins.  We climbed around a bit, trying to avoid the stinging nettles, and felt like Aragorn and Gimli and Eowyn.  It was so awesome, guys, it was this foggy, misty day, but when the mist cleared out we could see down into the valley.  Highly, highly rad.

There must be something about that hill, because it also is the home of a park called Monkey Mountain, where there are like 300 monkeys walking around that you feed.  It sounded really cool, but it was kind of rainy so we didn't take the time for it.  I'm really happy such a place exists, though.  Le Montagne des Signes.

We also went to a little town called Riquewihr, which Debbie recommended as the home of the best macaroons in the world, and they didn't disappoint.  We got some crepes there.  Awesome.  Have you ever had salty crepes?  I mean this girl just made them like an omelette, she spread out the batter on the plate, flipped it over, then cooked an egg right on top of the pancake, then put some grated cheese on top and let it melt, then put a layer of ham on, and folded it all up.  It was so yummy.  We also got one with membrille jam and gingerbread ice cream.  And one with chestnut spread.  And one with nutella.  All delicious.

Around Riquewihr there are a ton of storks; we'd see them nesting on houses and in trees. 

Last stop was Colmar, where we ate some quiche (AHHHH!) and took a gondola ride through the canals they call Petite Venise.  Our boat driver was this dude from Mauritius named Olivier, but he only spoke French.  The other group was from Zurich, but the mom was from Spain, so between all of us we could kind of communicate.  The best was me and Nate just sitting in the back with Olivier trying to say things in pidgin span-frenglish.  Votre familia vivre France?  Ah, Mauritius?  Tres chouette.  Vous Jouer futbol?  Ah, Basketball!  Tony Parker, frances!  Oui, oui.  When we told him we were from California, he said with a big smile, "Oh, sexygirls?  I love sexygirls."  That conversation pretty much took us the whole half hour of the boat ride.  Oh, and when he found out we were from California he pointed out to us a sequoyah growing along the banks.  Way cool. 

Charles, the GPS system, has been indispensable.  Sometimes he even seemed to respond to us.  There was one point when he said, "In 200 yards, keep to the right."  Debbie, surprised, exclaimed, "Keep to the right?!" and Charles said again, reassuringly, "Keep to the right."

Baguettes and cheese.  Debbie's favorite cheese is called Franche-Comte.

-W.

-- Okay, Carmen Sandiegers:  We'll just be here in Stuttgart for the next couple days, so instead of a city I'll clue the name of the holiday being celebrated in the village today.  It's a holiday celebrating the workers. 

Meet me at the Schloss... it's goin' down.

Whaddup in the homes!!!  Hi guys, it's Nate.  So I'm bloggin' bout the last two days.  I'm sitting on a couch in our room at the Ramstein Airforce base.  Wayne is sitting on the floor next to me, chewing a Fiber One bar while brooding over a huge map of Germany that he bought today.  No surprise there.  Annie is reading a book by the lamp in her pajamas; she was all ready for bed within minutes of arrival here.  Germany hasn't changed us much I guess.

Yesterday, April 29th, we woke up and hit the road to Heidelburg.  That has been my favorite place of our trip so far.  We walked through the old university and then took the freidnshnelken (sorry, that's not actually the real name, but the word started with an 'f' and was quite long), which is just a tram that gets pulled up the hillside, up to . . . The Schloss!  Isn't that a great name?  A schloss is a castle.  This schloss was quite awesome.  Unfortunately you couldn't just go wild and explore the whole thing.  Most of it was closed off.  But we explored as much as we could, and we had a blast doing it.  Plus it had many incredible views overlooking Heidelburg and the Mosel river.

The quote of the day, (for yesterday) came when I was buying a t-shirt at the university gift shop.  I asked the woman in charge where the t-shirts were, and she pointed at a rack and said, "These are the models".  I proceeded over to the indicated rack and started perusing through the t-shirts.  She quickly approached me and again proclaimed, "THESE are the models."  I wanted to say, "I know, you already told me," but I simply said, "yes, thank you,:" and continued looking through the shirts.  I did not understand that she was upset that I was browsing and pulling off the folded t-shirts on the shelves, rather than the shirts that were on hangers right beneath the shelves.  Finally, nearly shouting this time, she grabbed hold of the hanging t-shirts and said, "THESE ARE THE MODELS!"  This time I understood.  "Oh, sorry."  Well, I ended up buying one of the shirts, and I made sure to show her the "model" that I wanted, and she did the honors of taking it off the shelf for me.

Anyway, 'These are the models'.  Quote of the day.  Don't you forget it baby.

After our Heidelburg excursion we drove to Burg Eltz.  A Burg is also like a castle.  I really don't know the what the technical differences are between the burg, the schloss, and the castle---i just know that they are all awesome.  Burg Eltz was beyond picturesque.  It was built on massive hunk of rock that jutted upward out of a valley.  So this castle just erupts out of this rock with beautiful medieval turrets and windows and stone architecture surrounded by lush green hills.  It is breathtaking.  Plus, our guide of the berg was this girl named Ellie, and she was super cute.  It was the first time she had given a tour in english and she did great, but she had lot of misprononunciations which just made her even cuter.

Okay on to today, April 30th.  We hit the road quick this morning, ate breakfast in the car, which consisted of  tasty european yogurt purchased from the Shoppette on the base and some smashed muffins.  We got to Trier  about an hour later.  Here we saw some amazing old roman structures, the Basilica and the Porta Nigra.  There is tons of history behind each one, because they've each been around for well over a thousand years.  Look em' up on wikipedia though because I'm not gonna tell you much about them, other than that they are huge, old, and incredible.  In Trier we got the mother of all french fries: Belgium fries.  Belgium fries are nice and thick, and they are served with a big old glob of mayonaisse on top and some ketchup and onions.  An excellent way to clog your arteries...mmmmm!

Next we went to Metz, which is in France, where we saw an amazing old cathedral.  I thought up on the coolness level with Westmister Abbey, and that's really saying something.  It has excellent stain-glass windows everywhere, and three of the big ones were done by Mark Chagall.  You can really tell that they are his; they stand out from the others with fervor.  That doesn't make much sense but oh well. . . it's late.  Oh, there was also this guy playing the organ, and Annie went over to him and started talking with him and he was super nice and charming, especially after he learned about her musical talents.  She asked him to play some Bach, and he did.  It was like a  live Cathedral Jukebox!

This post is getting long.  The last adventure I will mention happened on the autobahn.  A lady got out of control and crashed right in front of us on the autobahn.  We slowed down and stayed out of the way luckily.  And she was not hurt nor were we or anybody else, which we're very grateful for.  It was kinda crazy though.          

Okay, thus ends the day.  Big day.  3 countries: Germany, France, and Luxemborg.  Plus a U.S. Airforce base.  Bonjour!  Auf Wiedersehen!  Bye bye!  And Go Jazz!!!

-N.



Okay, the best part of today was hands down the Metz Cathedral.  Gothic style, buttresses flying, loads of stained glass windows including some by Chagall.  And that's not even the best part.  After we had walked down the Nave, the white-bearded man at the organ began playing.   He was playing this really modern but really beautiful organ piece.  I was dying to know who it was by, and I think he noticed me loitering around the organ and listening.  When he got to a pause that seemed like it could be the end - you never know with modern music - I asked him who composed it.  He let me cross the barrier and go talk with him, not a bit condescending that I only spoke English.  He had heard of Salt Lake City ("big organ there!"), and he has a student (he's an organ teacher here) from Utah.  The piece he had been playing was by Messiaen, and he had been improvising based on that piece.  It was totally awesome, even though I dislike the other work I have heard by Messiaen.  I asked him if he would play some Bach, and he obliged.  He was so nice.
-A

P.S. Wayne is getting good at German by now.  He already knows basic conjugations and stuff.  And Nate bought a pocket knife perfect for slicing European cheeses.  In a nutshell, we're having a blast.
P.P.S.  The name of the tram to the schloss was "funicular".  (see nate's post above)




I just can't resist adding a few notes:

Annie had to specify that the guy at the organ was not condescending because everyone else in France is.  Nate walked into a Pastelerie, or whatever it's called, and asked the lady behind the counter, "English?"  She frowned and said "non" and WALKED OFF.  She only had a tiny bit of space so it was quite a trick for her to pout and stomp off to show her utter disdain, but she did it.  I said in audible English, "they really are brats about it, aren't they?"  Does that mean Americans really are brats, too?  No, just me.

The accident was crazy.  It was this tall black van, sincerely it was the car right in front of us, we just saw it start swerving, hitting the barriers on both sides before swiveling around to a halt.  Really scary.  Debbie was really calm, just stopped with plenty of room and plenty gradually so we didn't get hit, but all the traffic behind us was lined up.  The police arrived, no joke, within two minutes, and we were probably there for ten minutes before the cops swept off the dirt and glass from the road.  And you know what?  No one honked.  Yay European drivers.

Do you guys even know who Debbie is?  She's mom's friend from college (they met on an anthropology field study) and her family lives here in Germany now.  She's getting us in to all the US Military bases.  Without her, this part of our trip would be impossible.  She is helping us out so much, and making it just really fun.  So be glad your parents are so incredible that people love them enough to do stuff like this for you just because you're their kids.  :)

K, I know this is already Mammoth Blog Post.  Zwei (two) more things:  US Military bases are their own country.  They're unreal.  They're like this ideal articulation of an America that doesn't actually even exist in America.  I actually have a lot to say and think about that, but for now let me just say it's been really fascinating to see, and it's made me love America even more.

Highlight of yesterday:  we were walking down to Burg Eltz, and Nate picks up a rock and says, "Let's play a game."  Annie and I know him well enough to expect something good after that sentence, and he didn't disappoint.  The game is this: Whoever has the rock has to sing, and when to pass it off to someone else, they have to pick up where you left off.  Like Round Robin stories, but with music improvised on the spot.  It was so funny that by the time we got to the castle Annie couldn't even catch the rock she was laughing so hard.

Love y'all madly.  Sorry we didn't have time for photos today.  I'll at least put captions on the ones from yesterday, so go back and look.

-W.


--tomorrow we're going to a lot of towns, so you'll have to try and figure out the german name of the forest we'll be driving through, puzzlemasters.  it's in southwest germany and it's famous for cuckoo clocks.  I think its biggest city is Freiburg.  it's also the name of a kind of ham.