Life in Lent, Part 2

In our last post, Stacy described our home and neighborhood (although, try as she did, mere words cannot capture Ian's primal Braveheart-meets-300 yell that he gives as he runs to the other line in the neighborhood games of Red Rover). I wanted to describe a little bit more about the town we live in.

We are loving life in the Netherlands. What's not to love about a place where rides bicycles everywhere, everyone speaks English as a second language, and all of the restaraunts serve pancakes at every meal!

We've been getting into Bike riding-- the family that we are renting from lets us use their bikes. Back home in California, the boys don't ride bikes much since our road is a steep hill. Dom and Ian both have really done a great job learning to ride, although when we ride long distances, Ian rides on Stacy's mega-bike.


Our town, Lent, is a small little town, but it's just a 15-minute bike ride over the River Waal (it's the Rhine) to Nijmegen.
Nijmegen is the oldest city in the Netherlands, with ruins from some Roman settlements dated at 17 A. D.


The city is really beautiful, even though there aren't too many old buildings left-- during World War II, the U. S. Air Force accidentally destroyed about 80% of the old town when they bombed the city, thinking they were bombing a German city of Kleve just over the border. They've forgiven us. In fact, a few days after we arrived, they celebrated the 4 & 5 Mai (the 4th and 5th of May), when they remember the days that the Netherlands were freed from Nazi control in 1944, and they still honor the French, Canadian, and American forces that helped them.

The oldest standing building is the Valkhof, built in 1030 A. D., and it is still used as the location of city festivals.

This has been a great place to live in because people are incredibly friendly. In fact, some of the neighborhood kids are in a local soccer team, and one day when some kids were sick, Dominic and Ian were invited to join for the day to fill in the roster. We didn't win, but the boys had a great time.
We spend time most days tutoring the boys on some school work, now that they're no longer in German schools (and I spend time working on research and writing lectures for next semester), but during these last two months we have had a lot of flexibility to take advantage of cheap train tickets and cheap RyanAir tickets (don't get me started about RyanAir...), visiting places like Florence (staying for a week at the amazing villa of our good friend Elizabeth, hanging out with her and her wonderful dogs Althea and Macchiata),

Paris,

Berlin,

Amsterdam,

Dublin,

and the Lakes District of England.

Well, our year in Europe is just about over. This Friday, we take the train back to Heidelberg so we can spend a bit more time with our friends there. Then, next Monday we fly back home. We have had incredible experiences, but we are all really ready to get back home to our friends and family.

Life in Lent, Part 1

We've been in the Netherlands for almost a month now. It's gone by really fast. We're so pleased with where we're living and are glad to be here. We're finding whereever we go around here the people are friendly and patient, and our neighbors seem to be especially so.

Here's our "street," Dokter Huijgenhof. It's a group of 36 houses situated on an oval where the front of the homes look out onto the oval street and the green space and a playground in the center. It was all built 3 years ago and only one house had been sold in that time, so everyone knows each other. Also, there are tons of young kids around; we were told around 50.

Almost all the homes have a bench or chairs out front and often people sit out and talk or sit on the grass to visit. I think our home definitely needs a bench out front and we need to get our tushes in it. It is a great feel in the community to have everyone out so much.
Lots of homes are close together to save space and go straight up. Here's the tall view of our place.
Outside people ride bikes and other wheeled things in and around the oval, and kids run around playing games. Last Saturday it was warm so there was a great water gun fight most of the afternoon.
Below are kids at play again. Ian is in the red shirt with the ladybug umbrella and Dominic is the one hanging 1/2 off the platform. Steve and I have been so impressed with attitudes here. Everyone is generally calm, kind, friendly, and accepting. We even see it in the kids. Ian wanted to play "Red Rover" one day, so Dominic taught everyone and now we hear them playing it sometimes even when the boys aren't outside. Here someone has taken down the line. They play for keeps!

Here's a tour of some of the inside of our place. We really enjoy it here. On the ground floor there's the entry way - with a purple wall, even!

The living room...
And the kitchen. We both think the green cabinets are really fun. And there's a little garden area outback that also has the shed where the bikes and things are.
The we have some steep, slick stairs up to the second floor.
For the first time ever, they boys each have their own room. Here's Dominic's. He enjoys being about to look out the window every night as he's falling asleep. Which, by the way, is difficult because it doesn't get dark until after 10 p.m. here and their bedtime this summer is at 9.
And Ian's room. Ian really likes to look at the big map above his bed.
I guess I either ran out of camera batteries or steam here, but I don't have pictures of our bedroom, or the third floor that has the laundry, guest bed loft, and office.

And I'm out of steam again, because that's all for today. I'll do a part two soon about riding bikes, the area around here, and the animals and scenery we get to enjoy here.

Thanks for indulging all these pictures. We really miss you all and wish you could come visit, so this is my way to share and feel like you're here, too.

Take care!

Stacy (and the rest of the family, too)

The threw us quite a going away party, according to the letter... (again)

During the nine months that we've lived in Heidelberg, we've learned to discount several myths. For example, we had heard that Germans tend to be fairly distant toward strangers and nonexpressive, but this couldn't be further from the truth. We've had to say goodbye to so many people who have really become special to us this year.

To start off with, it was hard to say goodbye to our students-- we really feel like 57 new cousins have been added to the family. We can't believe it went so fast and we're looking forward to getting together again in August in Malibu. Many of them are keeping up with us on Facebook and we love it.

Unfortunately, Daniel Daugherty, the program director, was sick for the final banquet with the students, but we were glad to have time to spend with wonderful colleagues and friends like Mary,

Ulla,

Christina, Martin, and Bruno. Along with Daniel, these colleagues have warmly accepted us, and it's been a pleasure to work side-by-side with them this year.

Outside of the Pepperdine community, though, we've been shocked by how many others have warmly accepted us, helped us, laughed with and at us, and made us feel like we have another home.

Thanks to Stacy's friend Verena (you'll find out more about her below), she's been part of a book club "Literaturkreis" this year. It makes her laugh to go to a German book club because she doesn't even attempt to read. She goes and listens, nods, and smiles. And the women have become friends and been accepting, tolerant and patient. Not to mention lots of fun! To show her thanks for the great year, she invited the club to the Moore Haus for a dinner. Oh, yes, and to discuss yet another book she didn't even try to buy much less read. So here's the faithful six (down from about 15 the first night - including the "founder" of the club who I think was able to come once): Sitta, Nicole, Verena, Meggie, Stacy, and Gabriela.

Steve said goodbye to his Monday-night Kegeln club. One of his best sets of memories of this year is of this bowling club. One tradition of this group is that a person will bring dinner for the entire group on the week of his or her birthday. Since everyone was on Christmas vacation at the time of Steve's birthday, he never cooked them dinner, so he took this chance to make an American dinner for them, complete with tacos, mojitos, and brownies. They gave a very kind speech for him, and gave him the coolest book we've ever seen about Heidelberg. His biggest accomplishment, however, was that he was finally-- on the last night-- able to drink the pre-bowling shot of schnapps in one single drink-- that's strong stuff.

I hope I'm not mis-spelling any of the names, but my kegeln friends were (back row) Phillip, Hanspeter, Karl (thanks from inviting me and driving me every week!), Siegfried, Heinz, (middle row) Doris, Hedi, Rosa, (front row) and Gerhard.

The boys said goodbye to the friends that they made at school.

Ian's wonderful teachers (Miriam, Carolin, and Melanie) had the kids in his kindergarten make a memory book for him, where each of them told him what the were wishing for him. Two of his best friends are Kai (who wished for him something about a chocolate and a white house-- I don't think anyone really had that figured out), and Alex (who wished that he wouldn't have to leave).

Dominic said goodbye to his great teacher (Frau Attree), and his favorite memory of his last day of class was that all the boys rushed over to him and lifted him up into the air.

In addition, one of the families that we've become very close to (the Koch family) threw a goodbye party so that Dominic and Ian could have one final party with some of the friends they've made.

We also had several families that we wanted to spend time with before we left. We went with Daniel, Karen, and Lisa Daugherty to Europa Park-- a really cool amusement park, where each region of the park was designed to look like a different country in Europe.

We went out to eat with the Drehsels, who introduced us to a great restaraunt that was well-known for a springtime delicacy called spargel-- white asparagus that is apparently very complicated to prepare, but can be made into wonderful soups and side dishes.

Finally, we had dinner with Verena, Mattius, Luis, Joni, and Tino, a great family that we have really become close to.

Another family who's meant so much to us this year is Tilmar, Meike, Bente, and Sander Hummerich. Bente and Sander befriended Dominic and Ian our very first week in Germany, long before the boys were speaking much more German than "my name is...". Just a few weeks later Meike ran into us on the Hauptstrasse. It was Dominic's first day of school and we thought Ian's too, but Steve, Ian and I had just found out that the school fell through and we were all three sad for Ian. She walked us to what became his Kindergarten, took us to the Director, and helped us both with paperwork and with Ian. She also helped us with some things at Dominic's school. They invited us to celebrate both Tilmar's 40th birthday and Christmas Day (Weihnachtstag) in their home. We walked on St. Nicholaustag to find a statue of St. Nicholaus and never found him, but had a nice walk, anyway. And in April after the students had left, they came for dinner, with the four boys having fun adventures all over the big, empty house. And in all that, no picture!! I'm still not sure how that happened. Hopefully we remember to take one of all of us when we visit again in June before we return home. If not, Stacy will be forced to draw a picture and you will be forced to make heads or tails of it!

Church at Gemeinde Christi was another special group of people for us. They've been gracious to us in a thousand ways including taking the time to get to know us, and by inviting us to their homes or to do things with them. They do an invaluable service by welcoming any student or faculty and their family that choose to visit there during their time in Heidelberg.

It's been really hard to say goodbye to so many people who have become so important to us in such a short amount of time.

Well, now the title of the blog isn't accurate anymore-- the Rouses are no longer in Germany. We're going to spend the next two months in the Netherlands, and we just arrived at our new temporary home in Nijmegen two days ago. As soon as we get our bearings, we'll update this blog again. Several people have asked how to be in touch with us while we're here, but we still have easy access to our e-mail (steve.rouse@pepperdine.edu and stacy.rouse@pepperdine.edu), and we are still using skype (our username is stevenvrouse) and our Skype phone number (310-929-5828) still costs no more than a phone call to California (and you never have to worry about getting time zones confused because we only have this running when we are awake and our computer is on).

We love hearing from you! Take care!

Yes, We're still alive

Yeah, we're still alive, even though some of you haven't heard from us since November. Back when we first started writing this blog, we said that we're not usually bloggers, and even at that that time we knew that there was a danger that we might get out of the habit of updating it. After a bit of time passes, there's so much to write that it gets intimidating to sit down and catch you up on everything we've been doing. So this blog entry is going to be big on pictures, but without much writing. Nothing clever and no elaborate explanations-- just catching you up on what we've done so we can now start blogging again in smaller chunks.

Well, the fall ended with us having to say goodbye to our students. Four of them knew that they weren't coming back this spring, but we knew we'd see the other 44 this semester.

Our year ended on a high note because the Whites came to spend several days with us. It was so much fun hanging out with some really great friends, showing them around Heidelberg...







Mannheim...

Ladenburg...

...and a swim-park in Schwetzingen.

We got to celebrate Silvester (which is the German name for New Years' Eve) with the Whites and the Daughertys. The Daughertys introduced us to a German tradition-- you melt some tin in a spoon over a candle, and the you pour the melted metal into a pan of water, making it turn solid instantly. Then, you decide what object the piece of metal looks like-- like a fish or a snake. Then, you look up that object on a chart, and it tells you your fortune for the upcoming year. The kids loved it-- what kid wouldn't love melting things over a candle, while the parents worry about you inhaling poisonous fumes and splattering yourself with molten metal.

Right when it turns midnight, everyone in the city starts setting off fireworks-- for about 90 minutes, the entire city was exploding with the sounds of fireworks. We had the best view in the city-- the Moore Haus is on a hill overlooking the old city, so we got an incredible city-wide firework show.

A few days later, our students returned. Along with 44 who had been with us in the fall came an additional 9 students who were with us just for the Spring.

Dominic was really glad that they all got back in time for his 9th birthday, but he never expected a surprise birthday party, with all 53 of our students, the faculty and staff of the Heidelberg program, and two friends that he and Ian have become very close to-- Joni and Tino

Our first trip this semester was to Berne Switzerland. The city is absolutely beautiful, and the boys really enjoyed going to the Albert Einstein museum...

...but they loved finding the World's Largest Chupa Chup (a strawberry sucker) even more.

This semester, our whole group went on a five day trip to Spain. To be honest, I had never really been very interested in visiting Spain before, but we were all so impressed with Madrid...




...El Escorial...

... Toledo...

... and especially Seville.

One real high point on the trip was an afternoon spent rowing boats in the Parque del Retiro.

Spending time in Madrid reminded us that winter's end was approaching, and we didn't want to let the winter pass by without going skiing. We spent a day in the Black Forest at a ski area near Freiburg. It was only the second time the boys had gone skiing. Dom loved it. We couldn't figure out why Ian wasn't enjoying it until the day ended and we figured out that he was sick. That explained why he was so exhausted.

He really is asleep on our suitcase under the coats.

When Pepperdine's spring break arrived, we couldn't go traveling because the boys were still in school. Luckily my sister Anna timed her visit to be here during my Spring Break, so we had a lot of time for visiting great medieval castles and cities like Hirschhorn...

...Neckarsteinach...

...Bad Wimpfen...

...Freiburg (where Ian got sick again-- there's something about that town)...

... and to go stork-watching in Strassbourg...

...and see the tech museum in Speyer...

Anyone who knows Anna knows that one of her incredible talents is photography, so check out the pictures she took on her trip by clicking here. Her picture of the Strassbourg cathedral's rosetta window is one I've wanted to take every time I've been there, but I never was able to get as incredible a shot as this.

Anyone who knows Anna also knows that another one of her incredible talents is getting away from pictures. Dominic, though, is showing an early talent for being a good spy with his ability to take quick pictures before anyone even knows what he's doing. Gotcha!

Well, my spring break ended about the time that Dominic and Ian went on Easter Break, so I wasn't able to go with them, but Stacy and the boys took a flight down to Malta, a beautiful little Mediterrarean island. These two California boys loved being able to get back to playing on a beach...

... and they both rode horses for the first time.

Finally, at the end of the week I got to join them. It is such an incredible place. Unfortunately, we ran into some camera problems so we weren't able to take a picture of one of the high points. We went to il Ggantija, which is the oldest free-standing building in the world. It's the ruins of an ancient temple that was built around 3500 BC, making older than the Egyptian pyramids and the Stonehenge megaliths.

We've also had an incredible time with our students. A couple of weeks ago, for example, our students set up a volunteer service roject to clean up trash around the parking area of the Heidelberg castle and on the walkways around our part of the city. They are an incredible group of students, and we have fun with them whatever we're doing. Plus, the orange vests look cool.

The last excting thing we've done was a trip a few day ago. Stacy and I left the boys with a student, and we went to Hirschhorn, a nearby town where the 13th century castle (perched up on a hill overlooking the Neckar River valley) has been turned into a hotel. This was the view from our room.

So, yes, we're still alive and having a great time in Germany. Sadly, our time here is just about up. Our students leave us in just a couple of days. We'll stay in Heidelberg for the rest of April, but then we'll move up to the Netherlands for May and June.

We've loved getting skype calls and phone calls from many of you. We'll still be able to use skype (my user name is stevenvrouse) and our California number (310-929-5823 - if you've been afraid to call us, it really only costs the same thing as a call to California), so we'd love to hear from you!

Well, now that we've made up for more than 4 months of being negligent bloggers, it won't be so scary to think of sitting down and updating you. So you'll hear from us again soon!

German Holiday in Germany

St. Martin's Day was Sunday, November 11th.
"What is St. Martin's Day?" you may ask. As of two weeks ago, we can tell you!

BRIEF HISTORY: Martin was a Roman soldier from the 300's and one cold night he noticed a very poor man begging who was starving to death. Martin had no food or money to give him but decided to use his sword to cut his own military cloak in half and put the other half over the beggar. He later became a Christian and in 370ish, Bishop of Tours, France, but it's Germany that still embraces his feast day. Martin Luther was born November 10th but named on the 11th after St. Martin. Because of the connection between the two Martins, both Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians in Germany celebrate the day.

HOW THE HOLIDAY IS CELEBRATED: It's really celebrated by families with younger children (to about 4th or 5th grade). The Kindergartens here teach the kids the songs and story for a few weeks prior to the holiday and help them make St. Martin's lanterns (Laterne) and got them ready for the Martinsumzug (St. Martin's Day Parade). Ian didn't want to make a lantern, but the Monday before the holiday his sweet teacher Miriam "gentled" him into making one by getting him to tell her his "Lieblingstier" (favorite animal). And the cutest Elephant Laterne I've ever seen came to life. He's very proud of it! Ian's Kindergarten had their own Martinsumzug on Wednesday Nov 7th. We met at his school yard, Laterne in hand, with all the other kids and they sang for the families. Then the kids Ian's age (going to 1st grade next year) re-enacted the story for everyone. After that, the school's director (Schulleiterin) led the whole Kindergarten, families and all, through some of Altstadt on the Umzug (parade). The parade doesn't start until it's dark. That's not so bad considering it gets dark around 5:15 p.m. right now! Most of the kids have electric candles in their lanterns so they glow. I say most, because some have real candles. Scary to think of 2 to 10 year olds running around with lit candles inside laterns made out of tissue paper. And yet, it works. Until just a few years ago all lanterns were with candles and friends of ours have told us how only a couple would catch on fire every year and parents were good at stomping on the laterns to put out the fire while the poor kid would sob because their beautiful lantern was burned and flattened. Ah, memories...At the end of Ian's parade, all the children were given a St. Martin's Menschen, which is a man made out of yeasty bread with raisins for eyes and buttons. Dominic's not a fan of the bread, so Ian got two until he decided he was full. Then Steve and I got to share it and thought it was yummy.

The City of Heidelberg had their Martinsumzug on the 11th. That's a good thing, because after walking in Ian's parade Dominic really wanted to participate, too. The next day he designed and made his own lantern with a kit and was all ready for Sunday. He and Ian are both into Webkinz [thanks to The Brewsters, Cupps, and Jordans!:)] so he took pictures of his panda, Ian's elephant, and two others that we have here that we're giving to cousins for Christmas, printed them out and glued one picture on each of the four sides. The City's parade had a woman on a horse acting out St. Martin, and a patrol behind her carrying a huge Laterne on posts followed by parade people. At the end of the parade, they acted out the story, too, then the kids got more St. Martin's Menschen. A neat thing about this holiday is that it's so familiar and loved by people here. Parents who have raised their kids still know all the songs and talk about how they miss not doing it anymore. Grown-ups who haven't been since they were kids still will warmly tell you about it and even sing some lines from the songs. And the German homes we have visited still have a least a few Laterne on display somewhere in their home. It's fun to be a part of something so intregral and well known in their culture that I have never been a part of before. It's really special.

Ian loved it so much (Child that refused to make a lantern til the last minute!!) that he wants his 6th birthday to be at dinner and wants his American friends to make laterns then have a parade. It's kind of a bummer that his birthday's in July when it stays light for so long, but we've bought Laterne kits and the plastic Laterne sticks (they look like short fishing poles to me) with bright lights on the end. We figure if nothing else we can put the kids in the garage and turn out all the lights for a mini Martinsumzug. And if Ian changes his mind, one of the activities will still be lantern making!! When I bought the supplies the woman asked if it was for a Kindergarten and I told her about Ian's idea and she thought it was really neat (she said "Toll!" which is kind of the German "cool!") that we would take Laterne to America. She probably also thought we were crazy, but she's probably right!

American Holiday in Germany

Hope you all had a fun and happy Halloween! Halloween has come to Germany, but is still a new concept. Almost everything associated with it is the creepy part of Halloween and non gruesome costumes are hard to find. People dress up but only at night, and it's mostly children not older kids or grown ups. Both children and adults who do celebrate mostly have parties, not house to house trick or treating. Mary Drehsel said this year for the first time she heard the phrase "Susses oder saeurs" which literally means "sweets or sours" but sauers doesn't just mean sour taste, but also something mean, so it's the German equivalent of "trick or treat".

Here we are in all our Halloween Glory...I'm Pippi Langstrumpf (Pippi Longstocking), Steve is Parpignol, Ian is ein Pirat (peer-aht), and Dominic is a Rebel Snow Trooper on the ice planet Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. Story behind Steve's costume: our student and teacher group went to an Opera two weeks ago, La Boheme. The tenor was excellent. The direction, however, was weird. There's a scene on Christmas Eve where a minor character, Parpignol, distributes toys to kids. In this version, Parpignol was bald with a huge nose and walked hunched over carrying a gym bag full of automatic weapons which he gave to all the kids. Then the parents turned into Zombies and began attacking the main characters. So when Steve found a big plastic nose he went for it, but couldn't find a bald mask and didn't want to shave his head. :)

There was some Trick or Treating in the Moore Haus then we had a group dinner followed by a dance party. Ulla and Daniel turned our weekly Special Dinner into the kickoff of our Halloween Party evening. It's impressive to see what costumes people come up with on limited resources!

Push those tables back and time to dance! Laura pops up!

Cam and Emily groovin' to the music

Adams busts a cool move

Jared getting animatedWhat's Halloween without a little "Thriller"?
Dominic and Ian differed on their opinions of dancing. Ian said "I was bored," and when Dom said he wanted a dance party for his birthday, Ian said, "Then I'll just be bored again." Dom wrote in his journal the next day about the dances he did the night before like the Robot, the Sprinkler, the Shopping Cart, and the Shower. But we don't think he dropped it like it was hot.

Yes, we have left Heidelberg a few times

We recently realized that if you read our blog you might get the feeling that we've never really left Heidelberg, so I decided to catch up on all of the trips we've taken. Initially, we thought that we'd be doing a lot of traveling to other countries, but this Germany is so beautiful that we've really focused our time on nearby towns and cities.

LINDAU

Our first overnight trip was to Lindau, a place that just might have become my favorite place on Earth. It's a little island town on the Bodensee (Lake Constance), which is at the border of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Looking out across the harbor, past the New Lighthouse (which was built in the 1850s, in contrast the the yellow-topped Old Lighthouse built in the 1400s), you can see the alps on the far side of the lake. One day we rented bicyles and had what we all decided was a perfect day-- riding around town, riding over the causeway to the mainland, riding along the coast of the lake, and then finishing the day with a vigorous game of minigolf.

STRASBOURG, FRANCE

Our first trip out of the country was to Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France. The entire old part of the town is surrounded by a series of rviers and canals, so we took a boat tour around the town before touring it on foot. The cathedral there is breathtaking, and we climbed to the spire for a priceless view of the city.

TRIER

We went with the students on a day-long field trip to Trier. The boys loved playing in the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, and it was amazing to see how well-preserved the Roman gates, the Porta Negra were.

DAY-TRIPS TO NEARBY TOWNS WITH MY PARENTS

My parents were able to come visit for over a week, and we had a great time showing them around. Although we had hoped to go on a weekend-long trip, that weekend there was a train strike, so we ended up deciding just to visit several of the small towns that we could get to on local trains. First, we went to Ladenburg, a town with some Roman-era ruins.

In Ladenburg, we had a very unique dinner-- a restaurant there specializes in a really unique cooking style. They bring out a slab of marble that has been heated at 1400 degrees, and then you cook your steak directly on this searingly hot stone. Can you imagine an American restaurant with a children's menu that includes placing a 1400 degree stone in front of a kid? Dom felt like such a big kid, cooking his own steak (Notice Stacy deftly stopping Ian's hand as he's reaching for the stone!)

We also took them to back to Speyer, as well as Schwetzingen, where the castle gardens are beyond belief.

ROTHENBURG OB DER TAUBER

While my parents were here, we also went with Karl Drehsel to an incredibly picturesque medieval town, Rothenburg. The town still is surrounded by its medieval wall, which you can still walk around. Karl also took us by a local glass factory, where Ian decided that his new career goal is to be a glass maker. We enjoyed the scenery, the wall, and Stacy found Kurbiscremesuppe (Pumpkin Cream Soup).

WIEN, OESTERREICH (Vienna, Austria)

The educational field trip this semester was a five day trip to Wien. I was completely caught off-guard. I expected a quaint little city, but I had no idea what grandeur we would see there. Most of the buildings were just too large and too impressive to capturn in pictures. But what an incredible week! We went to the Schoenbrunn Palace, and had fun with a group of our students running around in a giant hedge maze in the palace gardens. Stacy and Dominic went with one group of students to a museum that houses the works of a modern artist named Hundertwasser, a man who believed that straight lines were immoral since you don't find straight lines in nature, so all of his works were based on naturalistic curves, while Ian and I went to a military history museum, where we saw the car that the Archduke Ferdinand was riding in when he was assassinated-- along with his 90-year old blood-stained clothers! Stacy and I got to hear a concert that featured Strauss and Mozart music, and all of us saw the Royal Treasury.

We even had a chance to go see the house of Sigmund Freud. It was interesting to see the place where one person, single-handedly, came up with ideas that set the field of psychology backwards for about 40 years. Even more fun, however, was getting to eat cake at Freud's favorite cafe, Cafe Landtmann.

One of the boys' favorite places was the art museum. This wasn't because of the great Egyptian, Roman and Greek exhibits. It was because they learned that several of the hallways were used as sets for the Naboo Palace scenes in Star Wars Episode I (The Phantom Menace)-- if we imagined digitizing out a few sculptures and digitizing in a few battle droids, we felt like we were there.

TRIBERG

Last of all, yesterday, we went for a day trip to Triberg, which is in the Schwartzwald (Black Forest). The town is beautiful. It's known for two main things: Cuckoo clocks and having the tallest waterfall in Germany. The wasserfall is actually made up of about 6 or 7 smaller falls, all linked together. We didn't get a cuckoo clock, but we had a great time walking around this beautiful little forest town-- especailly since tourist season has officially ended!

Thanks for reading up on our journeys!
Steve