Friday July 9, 2010

A nice relaxing morning. It was 36 Celsius (96-97 degrees F) today. We sat outside and ate breakfast and had espresso. There were three horses in the field directly behind the house this morning. We ate twenty some feet away from these beautiful creatures. Matthias joked that it was nice to enjoy them, but not have to pay for nor care for them!



  We also ate lunch at the house today. We had hot dogs, from a jar, with a chili type ketsup and dried onions.

Nothing wrong with the packaging method,
I had just never seen it done this way.

After lunch, the kids changed into swimsuits and we dropped them off at the public pool in Gelnhausen. It was about 2 p.m. The four of us then walked around the old part of the town, including a Lutheran church. We also stopped in the lower market place for ice cream and espresso. My ice cream was called Malaga, which has rum and raisens in it. Wonderful! The other flavor I had was a peach and mango combination. The espresso was wonderful too!



An old city gate.





The lower market place.



The outside of the restaurant we ate dinner at later.

Along one of the skinny side streets was this very,
very old home. It looked like something out of The Hobbit
or a Harry Potter movie!

The Lutheren church we explored.

More exploring the streets of Gelnhausen

Here's an ancient city, with contrasting modern energy technology.





As we climbed toward the top of the hill in the city, you began
to have awesome views of the countryside.

Entering some of the old city defenses

These former Germans were not tall people!

Obviously building codes were different then!

This was worth the climb to see

That's Matthias out overlooking the city and countryside

A World War 1 memorial to the fallen soldiers

The upper market place. In the far right corner is a an area they
had set up for outdoor viewing of the World Cup.

Shops and homes along a street

You have to love a culture that finds every way possible
to provide some outdoor seating!

This was a really curious peice of architecture.

It was interesting finding a Temple in the middle of Germany. We
tend to have fixed ideas in our minds, based on the last information
input. For me, that was history classes in high school.

These folks were having a good time. One man stood,
when we passed, and told us we had to pay money to
the Queen of Gelnhausen, seated with them.

We continued walking around Gelnhausen, until about 5:30, then we drove to "the center of Europe". This geographic point is kind of anti-climactic, but we had fun. The kids were changing, when we arrived at the pool around 6:15. A quick trip back to the Bode's to "freshen up", which is hard to do in 97 degree heat and no AC, and we drove back to the lower market place in Gelnhausen.

I think this says "the center of the European Union"

Here's the center of the European Union. There are lines pointing
toward each member country.

Of course!

A father and daughter...

Julie seems to like the Prosecco with the green herbal flavoring.

You have to look close. There is a statue the boys
are posing with.

We ate dinner inside an Italian restaurant, with no AC and no cross ventilation for that matter. The food was incredible! Julie and I shared an arugala salad dish and a linguini in butter sauce dish. The bread was so-so. The meal started with Prosecco, an Italian champagne, "on the house", as an aparatife. The kids were given sprite, with the same green colored herbal flavoring. After the meal, we were offered either espresso, schnapps or another German drink, which is an herbal alcohol. The schnapps was VERY strong! I sipped Doro's, but it was way too much for me! Matthias had the herbal stuff and it wasn't bad. The espresso, on the other hand, was the best ever...creamy...almost chocolate like!

Oh, I forgot, we went grocery shopping in the morning. Aldi is the same here as it is at home. Very cheap. Matthias says this is a very important store to average Germans. Good quality, with low prices. Their wines are 1.99 to 4.00 euros! Doro says they are really good. The lady ahead of us in the checkout really smelled bad! She left a cloud of b.o. as she walked! So bad, the cashier kept one hand under her nose, as she rang up her order. Also, the shopping carts here are really convenient. All four wheels rotate in all directions. They are super easy to manuever!

We stopped at an open air market, on the way home and bought strawberries and strawberry champagne. It is sweet, but both bottles died quickly!

We returned home around 10:30 p.m. from dinner and sat outside, until around midnight, finishing the strawberry champagne.