We awoke today to chilly rain which did not support today's main events - shopping in Frankenthal or a longer bike ride. Instead, Brian went for a run (it was actually very pleasant) and Amy did her knee and neck exercises (physical therapy). Today was also a good day for Brian to catch up on his reading - dog aggression. Did you expect something else? When the weather finally cleared, Brian and Amy went for a walk around town and did a little work (just a little - we've been very good so far). By that time it was.....wine-thirty. A break for a quick story..... For today's wine snack, we ate some salami from the Wurstmarkt (see pic) but there's a story behind the salami. Amy spotted said salami hanging in a booth and Brian decided ... read more

Today is designed to be a quiet day. We caught up and posted the blog. Today we included some pictures of Aunt Eva’s garden so you can see her beautiful flowers. Brian went for a run, Jerry walked loops around the park while Amy did her exercises there. We went for a trip to the REWE, better known as the “R-store” to track down some Cola-light (better known as Diet Coke). Brian was going through withdrawals. He also managed to locate some microwave popcorn. On our walk around the neighborhood, we found an interesting Mini-Cooper. Maybe our green one is too boring. The gnome liked the skull design. He’s also discovered he likes wine very much. He thinks having lots of it may help with his search for a girlfriend. Aunt Eva made “lecker” (tasty) Chinese ... read more

We woke to more sprinkles so everything was wet and the snails and slugs were out. Brian went for an early run and Amy went for a walk around the neighborhood. One of Brian’s distant cousins, Christy, from America is stationed in Germany and is an Army MP. She came around lunch for a visit and brought here little two-year old boy. We didn’t get to spend too much time with her but the Aunts had a nice visit while we were gone. Osse and Nik (the dog) came to fetch us to attend a local bike race. Over 500 brave souls raced “Klapprads” (folding bikes with no gears). They raced 6.5 km up the 673m tall Kalmit mountain - in crazy costumes! This is an annual event and the theme this year was Winter. We ... read more

It’s a little hard to get up on time here but we all rolled out for breakfast by around 0830. After a German breakfast that’s more like lunch - brotchen (fresh rolls), ham, salami, cheeses, liverwurst, etc, some exercise was in order. The weather was great – blue skies and very warm so Brian went for a short run and Amy went for a walk and did a workout in the park. Brian saw some excitement with a big bus catching on fire. He turned a corner, saw flames shooting up in the air and scampered back the way he came. We also took a trip to the grocery store (the “Rewe” which is pronounced some way that neither of us can say!) and found time to take a little nap and read. Britta, Anna and ... read more

We had an early breakfast at 6am so we could catch the airport shuttle back to Frankfurt at 7am. It's a good thing we left early, because traffic was at a standstill around the city. Still got to the airport in plenty of time. Peggie and Jerry had to wait much longer since their flight was later in the day. We're sure our driver was trying to be helpful, but he sent us to the wrong place. We asked several times but he kept telling us that United was in Terminal 2. We still had a weird feeling as we dropped off P&J at Terminal 1 for Lufthansa. United and Lufthansa are partners so it seemed strange but away we went. We walked and didn't see it. Then we asked and they sent us to the ... read more