Because Robby Nagged Us...

We have had a great time the last couple of weeks being tourists in our new hometown, and going to so many nearby places. We're excited for our students to arrive, but we've been having a fun local vacation before they arrive.

A family that we have been getting to know at church invited us to the town of Weinheim to go to a waterpark called Miramar-- the boy sitting next to Dominic on the right is the son of that family-- he's named Maxim and he is about Dom's age. We had a great time, but we were introduced to one surprising part of the German culture. We found out that at this pool on certain nights, starting at 7:00 p.m., swimsuits are not allowed (notice, it's not just "swimsuits optional", but "swimsuits not allowed"). Well we decided that it would be good to leave right at 7:00, but we found out that German punctuality even extends to nudism-- at 7 sharp, ours were the only swimsuits in sight. That's when Dominic had a traumatizing experience. He was walking along, unaware that a naked man was walking right behind him, and he suddenly stopped and turned around. Let's just say that the phrase "Dominic got an eyeful" isn't just a figure of speech.

Heidelberg is a great town just to walk around and explore. They have incredible parks where kids can play with hands-on water sculptures.

The geese, however, are real.

A little south of Heidelberg is a great little town called Speyer. The main street (above) is beautiful. They have an aquarium that features fish from the Rhine River and the North Sea (which the Rhine empties into). Since it's just a short train ride away, we can tell this town will be one of our favorite day-trip locations.

Every summer, Heidelberg has a special firework show and lighting of the castle that commemorates the time (back in the 1600s) when the French army attacked the city and burned the castle, and destroyed part of the old bridge. We're not exactly sure why they celebrate someone else attacking them, but the display was incredible. They use special lights to make the castle look like it's on fire, and then they followed that with a firework show on the old bridge. The fireworks lasted 25 minutes long, nonstop-- the best fireworks any of us had seen. We watched it from a park right on the Neckar River, just about 100 yards away from the bridge.

On Sunday, another family from church took us to the nearby town Hirschhorn to go to a Medieval Festival. I had been to a renaissance festival in the US before, but it's a completely different experience to go to one at the foot of the hill below a medieval castle. Ian bought a wooden dagger and wooden shield, and Dominic bought a wooden sword and wooden shield, and they had fun in a wild everyone-for-themselves battling arena against other kids. It was complete chaos, and yet no one got hurt.

Tuesday we went to a nearby amusement park. Although it was small by California's standards, it had more than enough to keep us busy all day. Steve enjoyed most a freefall tower, Stacy loved the river raft ride, Dominic loved a ride where you are taken about 70 yards into the air and then swung around on swings, and Ian loved a Pirate waterski show.
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A few of you have called us on our new number, 310-929-5828, or joined Skype, www.skype.com, and we've so enjoyed hearing from you. If you haven't yet, we'd love it if you did! We even have a webcam now. Thanks for your posts, e-mails and mail, we miss you and enjoy hearing how you are and what you're doing.

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Our students are on their way here in the next hour. We are VERY excited for them to come. We have orientation tomorrow and Saturday, some fun local excursions with the group Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. Then German language immersion week on Monday!

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Also on Monday, Dominic and Ian begin school. They are both excited and nervous. We would love for you to pray for their transition and experiences.

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More later! Tchuss!