Heidelberg Area Pictures

When we were driving to the castle we passes this really weird piece of art.

Heidelberg is a college town so all the young people ride bikes everywhere. They park in lots and we passed lots with what looked like hundreds of bikes. I have no idea how they found their bikes when they went back.

The town of Heidelberg. This is the huge church you can see in the pictures from the castle.

I took a few pictures on the way home. I have no idea what towns we were passing.

Today was a fun day but way too hot!! Nothing in Germany has A/C so there is no where to get away from the 93* heat. I’m looking forward to some cooler weather this weekend. We are hoping to go on a Rhine River tour on Sunday.

Heidelberg, Germany

We went to Heidelberg today with one of Mari’s friends and her kids. There is a castle up on the mountain and we were able to walk around the grounds. Because Olga has been there a couple of times with her family and went on one of the guided tours she was able to be out tour guide and point out all the cool things about the castle and tell us stories. We took a tram up to the area with the castle because no one wanted to do any more walking than we had to in the 93* heat!

The layout of the Castle grounds.

The town of Heidelberg.

We went down to the town after touring the castle and popped our head into the above church for a couple of quick pictures.

Now for more pictures from the castle.

When the castle was built on one of the outside walls there are 2 carvings of men’s heads. They were the architects that designed the castle.

Lighting hit the castle and blew a huge hole in the side of this part of the building.

Mari walked around with an umbrella to keep the sun off Gavin. He did great during the whole trip.

Mari was going to give Gavin a little bit of wine from the huge wine barrel.

Gavin slept the whole time. I think he opened his eyes twice.

Another place that lightning hit the castle and destroyed a section.

Welcome to Germany

I flew out of Atlanta at 6:20 on Tuesday and landed in Germany at 9am Wed morning. My friend Katja picked me up from the airport and it was great to finally meet her after “knowing” each other for about 6 years online. She’s a Hunnie and as years of experience has shown a Hunnie always pulls through when you need them. When I arrived in Frankfurt we landed and unloaded out on a parking area away from a terminal. They loaded us up on busses and we drove all over the place before we got unloaded at some double doors. Once we walked inside we had to go up to another level to go through Customs and have passports checked. I only stood in line about 10 minutes so it wasn’t too bad. After that I headed to baggage claim and it is absolutely bizarre walking around in a place where there is very little English anywhere. Thankfully the important signs also had writing in English or I would probably still be walking around lost! Katja was waiting for me right outside of baggage claim and we headed to Wiebaden and Mari’s house. We got here about 10:45 and it was so good to see Mari again after so long!!!! We sat around and chatted for a while and I got to snuggle Gavin then we headed to a little Italian place to eat here on post. The food was great but by the time we walked back to the house I couldn't keep my eyes open. I slept for about 5 hours on the flight but it just wasn’t enough. I ended up taking about a 3 hour nap then we stayed up late watching movies and talking and didn’t go to bed until around 2 which meant we slept really late. I got up at 8am and no one else was up so I laid back down thinking I would wake back up in an hour or 2 and the next time I walked into the kitchen and looked at the clock it was 1:45. Oops. It is super hot here by German standards and since nothing is air-conditioned we sat around the house in front of fans. We went to one area of post to return something for Brandon and Mari and I went to the kids section in the PX here to look for a baby carrier since we are planning to go to some town and look at a castle tomorrow. There was a choice of 2 carriers and we decided we needed to try them on to see which felt best and I know it was absolutely comical. We pulled them out of the boxes and it was all straps and buckles, it took both of us to figure out how to get them on the first time but we decided 1 was way more comfortable to put on than the other so we went with that.

I took a few pictures on the way to post. Not to much to see on the quick ride, I’m sure tomorrow will be much more interesting.

German road signs

A McDonalds!

After that we went to the bowling alley or “Entertainment Center” for dinner because it has AC and pretty good food and it’s way too hot to cook in the house right now. It was league night so we didn’t get to bowl.

When we got home we had to take Gavin’s 1 Month pictures. I can’t believe he’s a month old already!!

Gavin loves to snuggle after he has a bottle. Mari has more pictures that we took and I’ll get those from her.

 

Kitchen counter tops and cabinet installation

Kitchen counter tops and cabinet installation

The counter tops and cabinet are finally in Haley’s house! We moved them over there Wed morning with the help of some of their friends. Everything went in great and fit great. We did have some issues with the tite joint bolts because of where they were under the counter it was really hard to get our hands to them to tighten it all up. We had to put the counters up on 2x4’s and saw horses to keep it stable and when I finally had to leave because I was already going to be so late driving back to GA they almost had it together and said it wasn’t a problem to finish tightening them later. I love how it’s all coming together and can’t wait to see if finished next week.
Everything is away from the wall because they just finished painting that area the morning of delivery so it’s not completely in it’s place yet.


Right now they do not have the kitchen light up yet, they were waiting to get everything in before installing it because it’s a chandelier with crystals hanging on it. Once that’s in there will be a lot more light in the room.
You can see how the joints are coming together in this one, almost there!

View from the doorway into the kitchen from the dining area.

I already have fabric to sew a curtain to go on this side of the cabinet all the way across. It will look really good. And as you can see in the top left of the picture they are still painting! lol