Giving a glimpse into our home

I thought that many of you might enjoy seeing what our place looks like here in Goettingen so that you can have a mental image of where we are - we have plenty of room for company should you decide to come for a visit!  Our apartment is the first floor - and though the building is older, the renovations are just a year or so old so everything is quite modern and new.  We are located just a few blocks from the city center so aren't a far walk to just about anything.  One of our little neighbor girls down the street told us that we get to live in the two-headed horse house.  We didn't understand until we looked back to our place from where Ellie lives!

We had never seen the two horse heads on top until Ellie pointed them out b/c we don't walk this street (Riemenstrasse) to our place on Lotzestrasse. Micah, Joel and Josiah's school property backs up to our house, but we don't have access through the back so they ride their bikes...which they love.  Noah's school is just a couple blocks beyond their school.

The view out our front window - it rains typically every day, multiple times a day.  We always have an umbrella on us - we never owned one before this.  Even with umbrellas, we've gotten used to being wet.  Just a reality to be dealt with!  The little shop on the corner is a wine and deli shop.  Wolfgang has been incredibly helpful in answering our numerous questions.  Tracy found out last week that Wolfgang is quite the wine connoisseur and is featured in several books pertaining to wine and Germany.  Also, Rudy, who works for Wolfgang, is a famous chef!  I can't wait to try out some of his food and glad that we are conveniently located across the street!

I have all the luxuries of my kitchen, though I will say that I miss my Bosch mixer.  Apart from that though, the appliances are more efficient than I have in North Carolina so it's been really nice! Notice the huge refrigerator - most people have a little box.  We were really fortunate that The Welcome Center at the university helped us in securing this flat - we talked with one family that devoted their first six weeks in country (and a lot of money) to get their place ready to roll.  Unfurnished apartments in Germany mean that there won't be any kitchen appliances, the floors might not be in yet, wiring might need to be finished - in other words - a lot of work!

We have German tv hoping that it helps us in hearing and understanding the language - what used to sound like gibberish is now more like a language.  We can now hear the individual words, unless the person is speaking really fast.  We are also picking up on more and more words that we know and understand.  It's a slower process than we were anticipating.

Micah and Joel's bedroom - I must have forgotten to take a picture of Josiah and Noah's....could be that their beds weren't made?!  Their room is much smaller with a set of bunkbeds - still nice though.

Our entryway - tile is nice because our bikes are often wet and quite dirty.

Tracy is loving the German beds and has threatened to do this in the states for years now.  There isn't a top sheet.  Instead you have a quilt-like spread that you put inside the sheet and zipper it shut.  Then, you have your own blanket.  For the first time in 15 years, Tracy is not having to work to keep the blankets on his side of the bed!  This could be one of the "souvenirs" that he brings home with him!

The boys love that the toilets stick out from the walls - Micah was convinced that either Germans must break a lot of toilets or they aren't as overweight as Americans.  We are finding the latter to be true....could be from all the biking!  We actually have two bathrooms - very nice luxury.

My beloved washer/dryer - soooo thankful to have this in our place!  I am still adjusting to the size - quite small - and time that it takes to wash one load.  Because they conserve so much energy and water, it takes 2 1/2 hours to get one load through the washer.  I thought I was doing something wrong at first!

Birthday Bikes

     Upon arriving in Goettingen, we quickly realized that about 95% of the people use bikes as their primary means of transportation.  Or at least it felt that way as we walked out of the train station that first day and saw a sea of bikes chained to any and everything chain-able. 

     Goettingen is a very safe city comparatively speaking - bike thefts make the front page.  So that helps with thinking about our country boys riding the city streets.  I will say, however, that there are a lot of rules of the road which we are quickly learning so that they really do stay safe, both for pedestrians and bikers.
     Within the first few days of miles and miles of walking (not an exaggeration as the boys and I got lost several times in the city center!), Tracy promised the boys bikes before too long.  What we ended up deciding to do was to purchase bikes as their birthday gifts.  Then when we resell them next summer, the boys get to pool the money and split it evenly to purchase souvenirs and gifts to take back home.  Tracy and I love the fact that our birthday shopping for them is all complete until next summer!  And then with skiing in the Alps over Christmas....that shopping is complete as well.  Makes this non-shopper of a mom very happy!

The boys are all smiles after arriving home with the new birthday bikes!

    

We do have about 8-10 steps into our flat, and since we don't have any outdoor areas, the bikes are all being stored in our entryway for now. Noah is not quite strong enough to get his up by himself, but thankfully Joj is willing to help. It won't take him long to be able to manhandle that thing alone, I'm sure!

One of the coolest things we have seen is what is called a Laufrad - meaning walk/run bike. Because bikes are so key to city life, kids are trained very early as to how to get around on them. I saw this little 3-year old at the park (pictured below) last weekend and was amazed at the balance. I enjoyed watching this particular child...totally "All Boy" - it had just rained so there were puddles all over the path. He'd gain speed leading up to a puddle, then pull his legs onto the middle section and fly through the water. I've also seen younger than this guy on them doing just fine. Then, once the kids are ready for a real bike, there is no need for cumbersome training wheels! An American told me they are available in the USA but are hard to find. I think they should be everywhere - it makes such better sense!

More Castles!

I would love to live in a little castle like this one at Guttenberg!

This is a close-up of the window from the photo above.
It looks like the bottoms of wine glasses - there were
several windows like this at this castle and at the
following one.

On June 30th, we drove to Guttenberg Castle and were so excited as we drove up to the castle entrance! What a cool looking place to spend the day! Though throughout the drive to the castle that morning, we could often see a castle on the hill top surrounded by vineyards....and this is not where we ended up. Still, we were at a castle so after finding a parking spot, we started along the path towards the main entrance....all the signs were only in German, which was not a good sign for us. We found this set of stocks along the path and had each of the boys pose for a picture. I chose to post Josiah's because he acted the part of one gone crazy from the stocks!

     After realizing that we weren't going to find anyone that spoke English, that our tour-guide options were 'alles auf Deutsch' and that we weren't at the castle we wanted to be at anyway, we set off to find a place for lunch! Again, small village area so we found the only place open besides a bakery to stop.  We also chose this place along the river because we wanted help with figuring out the ferry - we could see the castle now that we had seen earlier, but a river separated us from getting easily to it. The photo below is at the restaurant....where we were all so thirsty and didn't know how to order water.  Well, we knew how to order water, what we didn't know is that unless you specify what kind of water you want, you get the bubbly kind of mineral water....which the boys don't care for but drank with thankful hearts.  We now know that "Stille Wasser" is what we want and we know how to find that on the various options of bottled water in the markets!

As most restaurants in Germany do have, we sat in the outdoor area....another project for Tracy next fall.  It was a great shaded area by grapevines over a wire mesh.  The boys noticed lots of little white Christmas lights so I'm sure the place looks magical at night.  Also, when the waitress realized that we were from America, she assigned us another waitress who spoke very good English.  She even had the slang down!  This is where we learned that you have to pay per packet of ketchup that you use for your fries.....anyone that knows us realizes we are in for some major issues.  We learned that a little too late on this particular day.  I think we'll begin carrying our own bottles of ketchup with us in the future!

 To get the car and family across on the ferry only cost around five or six Euros - the castle looked cool enough to give it a try.

We got off the ferry to see this!  First American sign since arriving!

This was the view of the castle from the ferry - the hillside is much steeper than this picture looks. It was a nerve-wracking drive up to the castle with switch backs during the climb.  Not only that, the European roads tend to be quite narrow with generally room for only one vehicle at a time to get through.  Tracy backed up a time or two for vehicles coming down the road - at a very good clip, I might add!

     Burg Hornberg is privately owned and would be a beautiful place to spend a weekend - there is a hotel on the grounds with rooms overlooking the Neckar River....for five Euros more than rooms that don't!  Something I figured would cost quite a bit more/room!  A wedding was taking place the day we were there - the two younger boys were hiking on a nearby hillside and watched part of it.

     Walking through a little wine shop/museum where we parked our car, we got to see all of the different weaponry that was found on the property through the years - many items dating back to the Roman civilization.  Again it was all in German so we gleaned what we could and decided to walk the grounds a bit.  The woman working at the wine shop was able to speak English like we currently speak German so it was slow going yet enjoyable.  The boys were about ready to leave when we saw a sign that said, "Enter At Your Own Risk" - what more of an invitation for fun can you give four boys???  So for 1 Euro/person, we entered the turnstile and explored Burg Hornberg for the next few hours.

View driving in...on what felt like the side of a cliff!

View of the Neckar Valley/River.  All the wine sold on the grounds comes from the vineyards along the hillside - one of the oldest vineyards in all of Europe....from what we gathered in our time at the wine shop/museum.

A close-up of the spot the boys were standing in the above picture.  (I'm still trying to figure out how to get the pictures where I want them....the one directly above jumped in a place I didn't want it.)

We figured that the doors on the left were for the horses to go through - we could see ruts in the rocks leading up to that door.

The next several photos are from inside the "Enter At Your Own Risk" part - and yes, we had a hard time containing the boys - there really were places that were accidents waiting to happen.  We are pretty sure Josiah is a cat with nine lives!  He has a shirt that says, "I do all my own stunts" - could have been wearing it this day.  All of them for that matter.  This was a boy's dream adventure - no tour guides to slow you down is what one of them said.

Climbed to the tippy-top of this - I had to count steps to keep from getting sick - can't stand open steps,
 especially after several flights of them!

This picture was taken to give my mind a mental break with all of the stairs, quite worn and rickety.

 We explored all of these areas...and many more.  All the while imaging life when

this was flourishing.  I would have loved a tour guide, but the boys

rather enjoyed making up their own stories.

Yes, their dad tried to help them get into the second floor of these structures though boards were falling through - I climbed to a point and froze in my spot basically.

We pictured being attacked and having to fire flaming arrows through these small openings.  At several of these spots, we could see rocks hollowed out at their centers jutting out from the castle wall.  One wondered if they were toilets?  :)  That's a long way down if you fall backwards!  Another wondered if it was for pouring hot tar on the enemy.  It was obvious though, by the benches at the sides of each opening, that someone/s sat guard at this post.

Really cool old candlestick holders - yet one more

project for Tracy!  They were all along one wall.

Heidelberg

We found this little cafe that advertised currywurst and pommes, which our tutor told us is a classic German meal.  With only 15 Euros to our name (there aren't many places to exchange money in these little villages!), we opted to get five meals and share them.  Ended up being just enough, especially since the boys weren't too crazy over the currywurst.

June 28, 2012 ~ Noah and Joel ~ Obrigheim, Germany





     After experiencing our first German meal in a little town near Kaelbertshausen called Obrigheim, we went back to the cottage and struggled to stay awake until 6:30!  We all slept about 14 hours that first night.  It took us several nights to realize that the sun doesn't set here until well after 10 pm!  And the birds start singing long about 3:30 am.....which we didn't discover until arriving in Goettingen.  Annnnnd, we know that won't last come fall/winter!
     On Friday morning, we drove to Mosbach (which is when the GPS switched to English) to exchange money and get some breakfast.  After quickly discovering that there are bakeries and ice-cream shops on every corner, we decided both were in order.

While Tracy figured out how to get us some more Euros, the boys enjoyed this little "park" outside the bank.  There were little places like this throughout the Mosbach downtown area, which was a pedestrian only area.

 Breakfast in Mosbach - with walking everywhere, it doesn't take long to walk off the calories!

I love these little towns!  I mentioned that it is pedestrian only, but you wouldn't believe the size trucks that come through these tiny streets.  The one in the background is just a delivery truck, but there were some huge construction trucks that came right past us at this cafe.

     After finishing all of our treats and seeing most of the market area, we punched Heidelberg Castle into the GPS and arrived sometime mid-afternoon.  We chose to not tour this castle as we know we'll see a lot of them this year, but we did enjoy walking the grounds.

June 29, 2012 ~ Heidelberg Castle

View from Heidelberg Castle wall ~ The church on the right is one that we walked through together after the castle.  All of us climbed the stairs clear up to the top of the steeple to get another view of the city.

The bridge in this picture was one that Hitler tried to destroy during WWII, but it is still standing.  The bridge reminded us of Roman architecture from our studies from last year!

Beautiful doors on the church we walked through.

Micah, Noah, Josiah and Joel under a rather large stained-glass in the church.

View of Heidelberg Castle from the church's steeple

~ The McKenzie Crew ~ Heidelberg Castle ~ June 29, 2012