Parents and Germany

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Well, first off, my birthday was last week. It was really nice, I went out with my friends on Saturday night to celebrate. We had lots of fun. Then at midnight on my birthday, my senora and Kate, my roomate, surprised me with a cake and candles! It was really sweet and unexpected. On my birthday, my parents came to visit. I met them after lunch and showed them around the old section of Valencia. They were exhausted, but I thought it was fun! Then I had classes and we went out to dinner after them down by the beach. On Wednesday they came over to my apartment for dinner. My senora had invited them to come and it was really fun. I had to do a lot of translating, it got confusing at times, but it was fun to see everyone together. And on Thursday afternoon, we left for Germany.

We stayed with Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary Kay, it was nice to stay in a comfy house with kitties! On Friday we took a driving tour around wine country and also saw some small towns that my ancestors lived in. It was cool to see the tiny towns that people still live in today. The towns in wine country were adorable, very typical, and very small. Germany was gorgeous, and the weather was amazing, sunny and warm! Valencia's weather has been crappy lately so it was nice to go to Germany for the good weather (and surprising). We also visited a palace of Ludwig I, it was very pretty, gorgeous location. The tour was funny because it was in German, and then the tour guide would try to translate into English, she was pretty decent, but it was a struggle for her to translate at times. We had some typical German food for lunch and dinner, I didn't really like it because it was all meat and potatoes. The salads had lots of dressing on them, the diet is quite greasy overall. I had shpargle there, it is white asparagus and quite important in the area. I could not eat the whole heaping plate of asparagus, even though it was pretty good.

The next day we went to Heidelberg, which was also very pretty. I liked the history and the fact that the castle complex was built over centuries and you could see the different architecture styles throughout. We walked around the grounds, then we went down to the town and had lunch and wandered around more. We went to a bunch of souvenir stores, and found a cool artists studio/shop and a huge Christmas store as well. Later that day we took a little tour around Worms, saw the old walls, the bridge, Cathedral, and some other things. It is a cute small city. We had dinner on the Rhine River, I had an "American salad" with "chicken wings", it was actually pretty good, the chicken wings were just fried chicken with a little bit of a spice to it though. Soon enough I will be home for real chicken wings! I can't believe it is so soon, less than a month...it is bittersweet. Anyway, the next day mom and dad left early in the morning and then I went with Joe and Mary Kay to the Nibelungen museum. It explained an old poem/myth about little people, gold in the Rhine River, dragons, Attila the Hun, and Worms. It was a long, complicated story, and when Joe and Mary Kay couldn't explain the whole thing before, now I understand that it is more complicated than I originally thought. After that I caught the bus back to the airport then home.

Today the weather is nicer in Valencia, less rain than the last few weeks...very welcome change! Hopefully it will stay this way. I am at a cool internet cafe now, my friends found it and it is a nice atmosphere, and free, good internet! Oh, and the big thing in Valencia is that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are in town, we think we saw his personal assistant earlier today and there were a lot of cops around. Apparently there was a big party sponsored by Prada and America's Cup in the center of Valencia last night. We hope they are still in town and we can go in search of them later. That is all for now, until next week.

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