Week 2.5 in Germany

I did not want to upload too many images in the last Germany post, so I had to split the week. After finishing all the cleaning on Sunday evening, we had the next few days just to visit places. On Monday Ben, Marlene, Paula, Karla, Einar, Jason, Marlene, Amelia and I drove in three cars to Heidelberg and actually found parking along the river bank of the Nekar close together. I guess it helps when it is cold and snows, people tend to stay away. We walked along the Nekar to the "new bridge" and split up there. Jason, Marlene and Ben took all the children along the river to the "old bridge", and Paula, Karla and Karin walked up Philosophers Way. It was so nice to be up above the town again. I used to walk up there every Sunday morning. The view is breathtaking and it is a nice little workout. At noon we met up again at Heiliggeistkirche and had a coffee break at Starbucks because the children had gotten pretty cold. It kept snowing on and off a bit. Time is running when you are in good company, so we had not much time to see everything. We ended up just walking down Hauptstrasse and stopping to get more treats and snacks. We were all miserably cold by the time we made it back to the car. Marlene wanted to play at the playground by the riverbank, so we all went on the dragon teeter-totter, which was a lot of fun, but very dangerous by American standards. We had Dinner all together in Oggersheim at the "Topf" with Schnitzel, beer and wine, before Marlene and Ben left for Switzerland and Jason flew back home Tuesday morning. On Tuesday Karla, Einar and Paula went to Rothemburg ob der Tauber, while I and the girls rested and helped Omi clean up. In the evening I met with the dance girls in Dossenheim at a Greek restaurant. Off all the places to visit around Ludwigshafen, we picked the Schwetzinger Schloss on Wednesday. It was very frustrating too me, that the weather was so bad and prohibited us from doing so much more. If the strollers did not get stuck in the snow or ice, they did not want to move on the rock pebble paths. The statues in the park were all covered by wooden boxes. Soon the babies were nearly as frozen as the lake. And the birds at "the end of the world" were not in their cages, but probably kept inside somewhere. Two peacocks were walking around visibly not happy with their surroundings. Still I enjoyed our little walk. These Baroque castle gardens are beautiful at any time of the year. We had lunch at the "Cafe Journal" which was a very positive experience. It was warm, light, we had high chairs and the food was great.