A break from the heat

We had a great weekend in Erlangen this week not only because of the festival right outside our front door but also because of the cold front that had just rolled in. For the last several weeks we have had non stop ninety degree weather without air conditioning. This has made sleeping a little uncomfortable in our fourth floor bedroom. Saturday morning we were so excited to be able to wear jeans and t shirts. It also made me a little homesick as I began to think about crisp Saturdays in Charlotte....especially during football season. We are going to miss hosting football parties but at the same time we are excited about searching Bavaria for someone/somewhere covering American football.

Here are a few pictures of the festival right in front of our flat.

Pretzels, unicyclists and street bands....a great start to the weekend.





I am so excited about August being right around the corner. We have friends and family visiting us during the first two weeks. For the third week we will be traveling to Berlin with friends to celebrate birthdays and explore the city. I have wanted to travel to Berlin since we first arrived in Germany. Finally, at the end of the month I will be traveling home to spend time with my family. I will try to keep the posts coming with all of these new events.

God continues to bless us with one adventure after another.

Neuschwanstein Castle with Anna

I was so excited to have my sister Anna visiting us this month. There was so much that we wanted to show her. We started off walking around Erlangen, popping in and out of shops and mapping out what we wanted to do for the rest of her visit.
We made sure that Anna was able to taste her way around our little town. We tried various pastries and pretzels, langos,and a doner kabob. It was a lot of fun to introduce her to the relaxed culture here in Germany. She was also introduced to 90' weather without air conditioning.

One of the highlights of Anna's visit was our trip to Munich. Phil and I had not seen a lot of Munich so we were very excited to expolore the city for the first time with Anna. We set up a bicycle tour to Neuschwanstein Castle (the original Disney castle) which included an airconditioned bus ride to the starting point. To say that the train ride to Munich was eventful would be an under statement. The trip, which usually takes about an hour and a half, took us 4.5 hours to arrive in Munich and then 6 hours to return home to Erlangen. We all made the best of it and laughed at everything that went wrong.

When we arrived in Munich we dropped our bags off at our hotel room and headed out to find the sushi restaurant that we had heard others rave about. It was delicious and was just what we wanted for our first night in the city. The next morning we headed out to meet the bike tour to the castle. We had a wonderful time. We biked all round the town of Fussen, which is on the border of Austria. We were then given the opportunity to take a short bus ride or to hike the gorge to the castle. We decided to hike the gorge and saw some beautiful waterfalls on the way to the top. Once we arrived at the castle we had a guided tour of the finished rooms (the castle was built for King Ludwig who died when the castle was only 60% completed.). After touring the castle we also took turns going down the luge which traveled down the Austrian Alps. It was an incredible trip and we were so happy we were able to share it with family.








What a wonderful time with my sister. Anna, I hope you are able to visit again before we head home. There is so much more to see.