Daytrip to Wurzburg, Germany

Saturday, we traveled by train with friends to Wurzburg, Germany which is located in Bavaria.

It was a little rainy and dreary but we had a good time nonetheless. We arrived right around lunchtime and wandered around in the rain for a bit before finding a really cute café. The food was really good and the desserts looked so good we got a few and all shared. Luckily, when we were finished the rain was as well. We ended up seeing the Church of Our Lady (Marienkirche) and Stift Haug church, we also walked by the Residenz.

We walked up to the Fortress Marienberg, which has been around in some state since 1000BC. It gives an amazing view of the surrounding area! Unfortunately, it was closing when we got to the top, so we didn’t get to go into the chapel. We did steal into the spring room for just a second before we got kicked out. We were able to look down into the well and actually see water!

We look forward to visiting again to see more of the Fortress and take tours of the Residenz and possibly old town Wurzburg.

We took a good number of pictures that we'll post in a few days when we're not feeling so lazy.

Have a Great Day!

Carnival and getting things off the checklist!

For reference, I put some links to google maps. We are currently in temporary housing near Darmstadt, so I show places in relation to there.

This past weekend we went to the Carnival parade in Mainz, Germany a town near us. This is effectively the German spin on Mardi Gras and was pretty amazing. Fortunately for us, Mainz is known as a carnival "stronghold" and they actually claimed they had a bigger parade than Köln (Cologne) this year.

As for the German take on the party: huge parades, everyone in silly costumes and outfits, lots of food and drinks, and carnival salutes - in Mainz they yell "Helau" fairly non-stop (it sounds like hello, but it isn't... its sort of like "hurrah"). Other places call the festivals Fasching, and some shout "Alaaf." I found this cool article about the carnival differences.

Our friends have some pictures here.

As for our checklist: We passed our driver's test (big deal) and got cellphones (handys). We have a bank and a post office box. We registered Carrie's new Jetta and got plates for it, but it is still in Bremerhaven waiting to be shipped in land (German customs). My car I shipped arrived in Bremerhaven as well, and is also waiting to be shipped in land (slow processing). Apparently, Germany shuts down during Carnival.

The most exciting news, is that there might be a leased house available for us, that would split the difference between our two work places (Kurt in Wiesbaden and Carrie in Darmstadt) to about a 20 minute drive each. We've seen it from the outside, and we might get to tour it this Friday. We are trying not to get our hopes up, but it sounds really good!

Everyone here is really great and we are starting to relax and get excited about living here.

Hope all is well,
Kurt and Carrie

First Post

Just a short post to say hi and let everyone know we got in ok and are doing well.

Apparently, we got in for some exceptionally nice weather. It is 52 degrees here!

The flight went great and our sponsors and new friends are fantastic. Everyone is so nice.

It may be a while until we get the car situation figured out, and longer until we can move into a house, but we are just being patient and taking it easy.

Hope everyone is well.

Kurt and Carrie