South Germany

The morning came early, and I stumbled out of bed to the shower. After I was tidied up, I went downstairs for breakfast, and then got ready for our trip to southern Germany. Ulf drove us to the Essen train station, and then showed us whuich platform to get on. The train ride was beautifull. We went through the Rhine valley, and there are so many castles it makes your head spin. I love train travel, its very relaxing, and I can get up and walk around. We got to Heidelburg at around twelve o clock, where we met our friends parents, Karl Heinz and Helga. They are both wonderfull people, and decided to guide us around for two days, and let us stay at their house. Our first stop was a brewery in Heidelburg, where I ate a stuffed pig stomach and lots of sauerkraut. It was delicious! Then we toured around a castle over looking the town, and I had a wonderfull time looking around at the scenery. The coolest thing in the castle though, was the giant wine barrel that was about seven times my height that had used to be filled in the olden days.Then we went to a giant church, and explored their tombs of old time kings of Germany. For dinner, I ate flammcuchen, and then we went to the Rhenharts house, and sat and talked for a while. The next morning, we had bread for breakfast, but I tried blood sausage and liverwurst. They are both great, but I prefer blood sausage over liverwurst. We all packed ourselves into the car, and drove to a town called Rotgenburg. Rothwnburg is special because it is still completely surrounded by a giant wall, and everything is practicaly the same as it was in the mideival times. There was so much to see in Rothenburg, and we browsed among the various shops for the whole day, feasting on bratwurst and schneeballs. Finaly, we went to the German torture museum. lets just say it was very interesting. We ended the day with a trip to another church, and I was shocked at the amount of craftmanship put into some wood statues. Dinner was schnitzel, and then we went home, talked a little, and then went to bed. Today I got up and had breakfast, then went straight to the car. We headed into downtown Carlsrue, and went into a elaborate mansion that reminded me of Versailles. The artwork in the inside was stunning, and the whole place was just humongous. We said goodbye, and then took the train back to Essen, where we had dinner at the Chinese resteraunt, and then went to bed. It was a good last few days in Germany, and tomorrow I begin my long trip back home.