Ludwigsburg

Well, Tuesday will be the beginning of our 3rd month in Tübingen. Wow, the time is flying by, especially now that the girls are in school. Sometimes it feels like we've been gone forever and other times it seems we just got here. It is starting to feel like home - albeit very different from home but we are pretty settled. The fall has been gorgeous and we have really enjoyed the colorful leaves - we are "pressing" about two hundred currently - Jay's books are sure coming in handy! The girls are waiting for the leaves to fall off the trees in the apartment complex yard so we can pile them up and play!! Our 3 dwarf trees in Texas don't measure up!!

This past weekend we went to Ludwigsburg - about an hour away. There is a huge palace there (only 452 rooms) built in the early 1700's with gardens around it. One of the gardens is a "Fairytale Garden" that depicts German fairy tales with animated figurines, statues etc. We were a little lost since we didn't know many of the fairytales but the girls enjoyed it. The real reason we went was to see their Kürbisausstellung (Pumpkin Display). This year's theme was "fairy tales" so as you can see from some of the pictures they depicted fairy tales using pumpkins. I never knew there were that many kinds of pumpkins. They do put squash in that category too though along with gourds. It was beautiful weather accompanied by hundreds of people but very enjoyable. Germans love flowers and all things outdoors and I think the whole state was there!! Karissa's favorite was Pippi Longstocking. That is her new hero since some German boys called her Pippi Longstumpf (the German name for Pippi) this summer when she was wearing pigtails. Enjoy the pictures, they are pretty self-explanatory.

This week we also celebrated Jay's birthday - we won't divulge any more than that! The girls had fun preparing for it. I struggled to bake a Banana cake - I had no mixer, no vanilla (can't buy it here), no counter space, finally found Crisco, and the cake pans are huge! They also do not have canned frosting!!! It was a challenge, it turned out kind of thin and dense but tasted pretty good. Anyway, we had fun and I have until April for my next cake challenge!!


Happy Fall!

Our neighborhood

Happy Reunification Day!

What? Today we had no idea that it was a national holiday until we tried to go to the grocery and hardware!! NOTHING was open. Later we found out that it's Reunification Day!! The wall actually came down on Nov. 9, 1990 but that was also the anniversary of the first large-scale Nazi-led pograms against Jews in 1938 (Kristallnicht), so the day was considered inappropriate as a national holiday. They chose to celebrate it on Oct. 3rd, the day of formal reunion. There's your little history lesson!


Loving this fall weather and wanted to show you the neighborhood where we live. We managed to find an aerial view and I'll try to orient you. You can click on the picture (or any picture on the blog) and it will enlarge. Looking at the aerial photo on the center left you will see a tall apartment building with a blue face. Our 4 story apartment is directly behind that. You'll see a road heading up from there to the top of the picture where the tiny village Waldhausen ("the farm" as the girls call it) lies. Check out Dayna and one of her bovine friends we routinely visit.


On the lower left of the aerial view you'll see a wooded area which marks the edge of the forest preserve. Our street goes right into it and Jay and Dayna are walking on it in the next picture. The trees are beautiful and it's so nice being so close to nature for a change. Certainly different than the treeless landscape in our neighborhood in Texas!! To the right of the forest preserve is the community garden. Germans love their flowers and these little plots let the city dwellers (most people live in apartments or attached homes) have their piece of the earth to cultivate. The individual gardens are beautiful and it's fun to walk through them.

On the right hand side of the aerial view you'll see two white round towers. The girls school is directly behind (or "above") the right one . It looks like 5 little rectangular buildings but they are all connected by walkways. You can see it's really close! So convenient since they never get out of school at the same time as one another. The market area, where our bank, post office, market, bakery, drug store etc. is lies right below those same two towers in the photo.

The next picture was taken from the top floor of the 14 story apartment next to us (student dormitory). The photo looks toward downtown Tübingen (pronounced "too bee gun" - at least by us English speakers! Add a cough in the middle and it sounds more German!) You can see that we are at the top of a hill in the city. So when we say we walk downtown we do mean down!


The fifth picture is from the main street running up and down the picture and looks back toward our apartment. You'll see the bus stop that we use and directly behind it through the trees is our backyard and our apartment. The kids in the picture are walking up the steps from the tunnel that goes under this busy street. That is the same tunnel that we walk through to get to the market and the school etc.

The last two pictures are taken from the bike path at the far upper left of the aerial view photo. The first looks toward our apartments and the other looks away. We have an awesome view from this path. Many people use these paths and there are benches everywhere for people to sit and enjoy the scenery. The tree in the picture is a pear tree and has been loaded with pears. This area has tons of plum, apple and pear trees plus a few peach trees. We've managed to eat a few of these freshly picked! Yum.

At some other time I'll show you around the market area and the girls' school so you can see the other places we wander almost daily! Our shoes are definitely getting a workout!