Leaving Germany

After a month we left. I won't lie we were excited to be done with the classes and away from the cold rainy German weather. We missed our husbands miserably and were excited to be closer to seeing them. We would miss Denise but we were excited to be headed to Greece. Here are our leaving Germany photos.
I love riding in trains. The Germans have the transportation system all figured out.

Farewells with wonderful Denise at the Leipzig trainstation. Above and Below: German Capital building. Berlin.


Brandenburg Gate. I was 11 when I saw this gate for the first time. It still had guard towers all around it.

Visiting Germans

Almost the entire time we were in Leipzig Megan and I had flashbacks to the times when we were missionaries in Leipzig SEVEN YEARS AGO. This was at times painful and gave us all kinds of anxiety. If you want to know why I'll tell you sometime but maybe when you are older. Part of the reason we felt this way was because we visited people we knew when we were missionaries. This part was wonderful. It was wonderful to see people and hear their stories. Here are a few of the pictures of people we visited.Above: Julie and her ADORABLE two girls. Leipzig, Germany
Above: Megan and her adopted Grandmother Hanalora. Leipzig, Germany

Above: Megan klingling by Herr Schwalbe. Leipzig, Germany.

Above: Familie Byrisch. Leipzig Germany.
Above: Familie Durlitz. Leipzig, Germany
Above: Gera. Below: our apartment back in the day in Gera.

Above: Megan with Familie Heiland. Gera, Germany

You know you arn't in Utah anymore when you see this...

This was in Dresden in the trendy Neustadt area. Unfortunatly we didn't have the time to check it out , or a car. This was in the Train Station in Leipzig. These Mannequins weren't just a change of display they were naked for weeks!

Daily happenings of Germany 2008 summer

When we got hungry we ate Bratwurst. Ymmmmm!! it was a wonderful experience.


When we had nothing to wear we hauled our cloths to the laundry mat. This was not such a great experience for several reasons.

• A)It took us hours to figure out where the laundry mat was
  
• B) Once we got their we had to figure out what kinds of coins the machines took
• C) We had no idea how in the world to locate these coins.
  
• D) We wanted to ensure that ALL of our underwear was washed when we did Laundry so we wore our swimsuits with our jackets over them to keep from freezing.

Yes I did say Freezing in July. Stupid German weather.

The Germans call their laundry Mats Wash Salon which I though sounded so chick but the spiders in the corners, abandoned pair of tighty-whitys, and bare light bulbs hanging from the ceilings presented a much different picture than what usually comes to mind when I hear the word Salon.

Luckily our wonderful friend Denise took pity on us and let us do the rest of our laundry at her house. Hanging out with Denise turned out to be the most wonderful experience of all. She is amazing and I can't wait to have her come visit in October. She showed us all kinds of cool Leipzig sights and tried to help us to Germinate. So far I'm still a red blooded American but I think the Bratwurst helped.

A weekend in Dresden (July 2008)

One weekend during the class they herded us up in a van and drove us to Denver. (OOPS! Spencer is watching a bronco's game as I blog...I meant Dresden not Denver!) Dresden was once known as the Florence on the Elbe. It is a beautiful city and apparently it was much more beautiful before the Americans and British bombed it right after WWII ended. The bombing is still very controversial and it was a terrible experience for the people living in the city. If you want more details you can read about it here.

We started our tour of Dresden in a nearby palace called Pillnitz. This was the summer palace of Dresden's king August der Starke (Augustus the strong.) King August visited Florence in his youth and tried to make his German kingdom into the new Venice. He positioned his summer palace just up the river from his normal castle in Dresden and had all of his visitors commute to Pilnitz by water.
Our tour leaders treated us like royalty so naturally we commuted to Dresden by ship too.

Pilnitz Palace with Whitney.

Above: Commuting on the Ship.
Above: Dresden's famous Frauen Kirche. Below: inside of the Frauen Kirche.







It was a lovely trip.

What did you do all day in Germany?

So I've been home a few weeks now and people keep asking me about my trip. I try not to mention how cold and wet Germany was and how much I missed my husband. "Oh how fun" they say. "It was great" I say. "So what did you do all day?" they ask. "we had classes all day that really stressed me out because it has been a while since I studied German in an academic setting" I think it. But I don't say it. I just stop after "We had classes all day." So far no one presses the issue further.

So here is what we did all day.

We did projects. We explored an industrious section of Leipzig one day and then did a presentation for our classmates describing this area.Here we explored a printing office in Germany.


Above: Some kind of junk shop. We were fascinated.

Finally our display!We did other class presentation. This one was originally called "Music in Leipzig." Then Whitney our fearless leader and resident good German sprecher had the wonderful idea to dress up like Bach and do a talk show with Bach as the host. I think it was funny because everyone laughed. The pictures say it all. We all wanted to take turns with the Bach Wig.
Where did we live?

We lived with Frau Strube. We pronounced her name wrong the entire time we were in Germany. On the last day when our wonderful friend Denise picked us up she said "oh her name is Frau (Mrs) Stroobe not Frau Strube. (same spelling WAY different pronunciation) I don't think Frau Stroouube ever noticed because she did most of the talking. She was a nice old lady who missed East Germany, loved plants, had lots of books, no cats, and always pointed out ways that we wastefully Americans could save water and electricity. She made us breakfast every morning. She tried to feed us black tea and liver worst but we forgave her.




Then when we were not in class we went to concerts. Here is us at a concert at the Gewand Hause in Leipzig.



Food was also an important part of our lives. Here was our first day eating at Auerbach's Keller. This was Goethe's college haunt when he was writing Faust. I went into the bathroom stall and he had carved his name into the wall. I have no idea what Goethe was doing in the Women's bathroom stall but I understand that he was quite a womanizer so I can only imagine.

This was our first innocent day.
Goethe and Faust.