Our first couple of days in Germany

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We have been having technical difficulties for the past couple of days .. So here is what you have misse



Monday

Wow .. We are having quite a thunderstorm tonight. We were sitting on the patio, but the wind and rain drove us inside

So today we explored the castle we stayed at last night ... We had a good time. We have decided the people that lived back then were related to billy goats. Lots of steep stairs and climbing in those castle walls. And it seems the siege was a very effective type of warfare - and castles everywhere spent most of their waking time either preparing to be sieged or being sieged. This seemed to be common theme for castles on the Rhein. Lots of great photos from today - and some Dave will be in trouble for .... See if you can guess the photos Dave will be paying penance for.

So we are all going to share our thoughts for today .... Here is Emily.

We arrived in the town of Rüdesheim after a three hour cruise along the Rhine River. We followed along in our book that gave us some insight about the 10 castles we saw from the river. The Roman castles were my favorite as they were very detailed and beautiful. We saw one that was built by a man who wasn't very smart in his choices and built the castle in a position where he couldn't see around one side of the river, so he built a smaller "Mouse Tower" to see around it. We ate a nice lunch on the boat, and we had dinner in a small restaurant that served us meat and pizza.

All in all, it has been a great two days.

Here is Connie.

Connie here. Things I have learned today: WC stands for water closet, Germans consider cold cuts a breakfast food, there's lots of graffiti here, everyone here has a flower garden. Even if they have to use planters, every yard has flowers, especially roses. Also, did you know French stamps don't work in Germany? I did not know that, now I do. Here's Mom.

We have had a big day today. Spent the morning digging around in an old castle. I am always amazed at this old stuff. Saw a tombstone dated 1686. The river cruise was awesome since we could sit down, be cool, and drink cold water. Not ice water you understand but cold. Emily has been trying to find ice cube trays so she can make me ice. But NO ICE.

Dave here. I was lucky today as I dove down to Rudesheim to meet the woman as they got off the boat. Now many of our followers would think my luck was ditching the 4 women, but you'd be wrong. My true luck was siting under a tree watching an anchored speed boat with two men and two women on the boat nude swimming and playing... So that was the high light of my day😊



Tuesday

Tuesday ...still really, really hot today. 40 degrees Celsius ... About 100 degrees Fahrenheit. But ... We have come up with a scheme to defeat the no ice condition. We are freezing water bottles overnight and then taking them out and letting them thaw. This is a very good idea ... And we have kept Grandmother provided with ice water today.

Today, we were supposed to go to Trier .. but I slept too late and we decided to go to Cochem today instead. There is a castle there and it is a cute little town on the Mosel. The tour was only in German ... Not ideal, but we did have an English sheet to help us out. Anyway, this was a cool castle at the top of of a very steep steep hill. We had the option to walk or take the bus. We chose the bus .. Though it was a very hot little bus. A good day .. Looking forward to Trier tomorrow.

Much better today ,ice water all over. Saw a marvelous old castle built in 1000,destroyed several times , seems the whole deal was to build a castle, survive several sieges, let the enemy destroy your castle , rebuild it with a bigger moat. How these folks had time to procreate what with all the building and destroying I cannot figure . Sad news today that our old friend Henry died. Bon voyage Henry , tell Marv hello.

Connie here. Things I learned today: Germans don't like to take money from your hand, or give you back money into your hand. Everyone has a little tray to put money on, then they put your change on the little tray. When I tried to hand money directly to a bus driver, he insisted I put the money on his tray. Second, not everyone takes American credit cards. We found a little yarn shop that I was very excited about, but only had a credit card with me. So no sale. Maybe we'll find another yarn shop. Here's Dave.

Well I'm back they are letting write again. Today I wasn't as lucky today as yesterday. I woke up this morning at 5:30 and Jimmie told me to go back to sleep as I'd wake everyone up. So at 7:00 I couldn't take it and got and off to the neighborhood bakery for pastries and coffee. I got the pastries but no coffee - machine was broken. After returning still no one up so off I went for groceries I bought the provisions and I thought I was in luck as the cashier gave me a parking ticket good for free parking - but alas when I went to use the ticket at the parking ramp the machine wouldn't accept the ticket. So now traffic was backed up and in my "best" German I had to tell all drivers to back up so I could move the car out of the line. After I parked back to the ticket machine to get a new ticket and repeat the process. Once again the "free" ticket didn't work and I again got to use my "best" German to have the drivers back up. I now decided to give up on the free ticket and pay the 1 Euro - so much for saving... Net result I spent 20 minutes in the store and 40 minutes trying to use my free ticket.

This is Emily 😊 Today was hot. Not nearly as hot as it was yesterday but it was still hot. You probably already know that we went to Cochem today instead of Trier, and that we visited the castle, but I'll talk about it anyway. The castle was old, as are all castles, but they still had some original furniture, paintings, busts, and vases. The rooms were all furnished, and we went on a guided tour through them. Even though it was a guided tour, we still had little ideas of what was happening as the tour guide spoke only german, but we had English sheets that described what the room was, which proved to be helpful. After we saw the castle, we stopped at a very nice cafe, and ate a late lunch, we then proceeded to wander about the narrow streets and look at all the shops, stopping to get some ice cream along the way. All in all, I had a great day today, and I'm very excited for the next couple days



And the pictures .....

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Comments

[PCPilot]

Woo Hoo too!
Happy the technical difficulties have been overcome! GREAT comments - really like that you all take turns writing. Nice perspective from everyone. Gotta say though, I think the pic Dave got in trouble for is wonderful! I envision many captions that I might get in trouble for!