the schlossberg, bodensee and rhein...

ooooh-ooooooo hallo! ya have to hear it to get it....
so, what the hell is goin on wit chu? i miss speaking newyorkese...fuhgeddaboudit!

we had dinner last night with some of gisi' s friends, martin and angela (with a hard G), and axel and maria...they are very nice and thankfully they all speak some english...axel doesn't talk much, maria talks enough for the both of them...she's very funny, we were talking about language and american pronunciations...ya gotta hear her say "tater". martin seems to know a lot of history of the region and expalining all sorts of esoteric things to me..we ate at a restaurant near the augistiner platz in town, sat outside next to a small canal...it was quite nice. zum rauhen Mann..the rough man...which martin explains, was the name of the house the restaurant was in, and was the description of the man who lived there...a lot of houses are named, it predates numbering system..so theres the house of blue star, etc.....angela's english is limited, but she is kind enough to try to speak to me as best she can, and it's really not bad..nice people!

i had a wonderful snail soup..a cream based stock with some a dollop of whipped cream on top...badisches Schneckensüpple...say it fast 3x...then i had a main course of schweinehaxe, a roasted pork shank, with sauerkraut and kartoffel knödel (a potato flour dumpling). it was delicious and the dumpling was surprisingly light...i remember the ones at the steinway brauhall were like paste balls. pork seems to be the prevalent meat here, which can be a little heavy in warm weather...but it is very good, i wanna meet these pigs. we then went to a biergarden...at the fierling brewery down the street a bit. no i didn't! i ordered a beer and gave it to axel..i drank shwarzwalder wasser. boy they can really knock them back here.

we then rode our bikes back home..as almost everyone does. we passed through the platz again, where all the kids hang..drinking beer and wine , sitting across the bächele, talking and doing things kids do. i wondered what happens to all the bottles when they're done. there must have been hundreds!

during the day we went up the schlossberg in the new tram they just installed (see pix). the schlossberg is the mountain that is directly across from us as we look out on the terrace. we walked up a bit to some viewing areas and took in the view of the city and the surrounding mountains. it was quite warm yesterday, like 83..so it was nice to be up in the hills and trees. whats really nice is that it is 10 minutes by bike from the apartment, and takes 10 mins to get up the mountain, very convenient. we had coffee in a cafe up the mountain, and there was a biergaten up there too.

the days before we were at the bodensee and the rhein river, where it starts out of the lake of konstanz. it is a beautiful area, farms and vinyards all around, the sea, and switzerland is across and up the river. there is one town (büslinger?) up river, completly surrounded by swiss territory, but is german..a little enclave that apparently was owned by a german count and when the borders were drawn, it remained german territory. martin said there is an area in the middle of basel that is the same way.
we stayed at a guesthouse on the water. look at the pix, you'll see how we found and booked it. very cool. we drove around the höri, the name for the penninsula we were on...named so because of a german phrase... as god made the earth, as was finishing, he said Jetzt Hör I uf! ..i am finished and i can't make it any better, it's just so beautiful. and it's true...
we ate some local plums that were amazing and had dinner at the guest house restaurant..i had two lovely poached trout with butter sauce...and then went down by the water to stargaze..we both saw the same shooting star as soon as we looked up!
the following morning we took a cruise on the local ferry, down the river to schaffhausen switzerland, where the rheinfall is located. the ferry ride was about 2 hours, so we got to see a lot of the surrounding countryside...then we took a shuttle bus to the falls. they are the largest in europe, and although they are not that high, the volume of water in tremendous. it is very pretty. after a few hours there, back on the ferry...we started at 11am and didn't get back til 5:30...so we then got into the car to head home. back home at 8:30, exhausted...had a pizza..was suprisingly good, i thought for sure the pizza here would be awful.

it is 11:30am saturday, and we may drive up to heidelburg today, about 2 hours. i hear it is a lovely town. no doubt. this country is full of lovely towns and villages.

ok, i am going to go pray now...and thank god for the good fortune i have been experiancing, and pray for all my freinds and loved ones, and be thankful and humble. and pray i can continue on a straight path...60 days today! yippee!!!!! tschuss!