Black Forest

Karen has finally found her knight and shining armour! (I didn´t realize Rick was so tall)
The only bad part of touring castles...is they are always at the top of a mountain!!! We hiked about 45 minutes to get to this point. This castle is still used today by the family Eltz.

Open air museum representing past farm life.

Oh, the fun we have been having!!! These pictures are from several different places in the Black Forest. We spent Saturday and Sunday with a lovely family we became acquainted with through another Fund for Teachers fellow. We drove to their house on Saturday afternoon. The day was very rainy and made travel on the autobahn a little tense. They took us on a tour of Wertzler (close to where they live) and then to dinner. We stayed the night with them. On Sunday they took us to visit a castle ruin and then fixed us a wonderful lunch before we left. Karen and I can´t wait to get home and fix a similar meal for our families. It was very scrumptious! Manfred and Jutta were very gracious hosts and we are eternally grateful for their hospitality and for helping us figure out some technical difficulties.

Over the Weekend

Hello all!

 Well, we have been experiencing technical difficulties over the past several days! Like I said before, internet access is not always easy to come by... in fact, it is actually pretty difficult! Not only is finding internet access difficult, but charging electronics is also not as easy as it should be! I am REALLY frustrated with the electrical system!!! You should be able to tell by my HAIR! I'm fairly certain that I fried my hot iron...ugh! The battery on the computer is about to go... I don't know if I will ever get it charged again... due to difficulties... so e-mail me if you don't hear from us again...

debbiemcclellan12366@yahoo.com

love and miss you all

Debbie 

More Pics from June 5th

Inside our room at the Rhein Hotel
Outside the Rhein Hotel
 Inside the watch tower overlooking the village of Bacharach.
Entering the village. Notice the cobblestone streets

Bacharach and St. Goar

Today was our first day on the Autobahn driving a Mercedes~ Oh yeah baby! I was going 140 km/h! Yes, everyone was passing me! This is day 2 that we are very thankful for the GPS. Other things we are most thankful for are FREE... toilets, internet, water and parking! They are very hard to come by in Germany! 

Our first stop along the Rhine River was Bacharach. This is a quaint little village with the oldest half timber house in town (built in 1368). One of the most amazing sights was the wine vineyards along the mountainside. We hiked "Cardiac Mountain" to visit the Stahleck Castle. It was very impressive from the outside, but it was made into a youth hostel in 1926... so we couldn't go inside. :( 

A little further up the Rhine we stopped in St. Goar. We found the deal of the century... a hotel with free wi-fi!!!! Well, almost free... Karen has to run over to the wall to turn the lights on out here in the hallway where we can get reception. Oh, yes, we are learning a LOT! So, don't believe everything you read in a tour guide book~

Tomorrow we off to see the Rheinfels Castle and the Burgermeister... Guten tag from Germany. Don't know when we will have internet access again... so stay tuned!

Love and miss you all~

Debbie and Karen

WE MADE IT

Finally, we have made it to Frankfurt! Our flight from Houston to London was delayed 2 hours, which caused us to miss our connecting flight once we got to London. Anyway, I'm sure we were quite a sight to see as we made our way through the Frankfurt airport and customs. "Those crazy American tourists!" We have found out that there is no such thing as "free internet access" in Europe! I really miss Panera right about now. We really haven't seen much since we have arrived. We did get slightly lost leaving the airport and trying to find our way to the hotel. Thank goodness we opted to splurge and purchase the GPS system in the car!!!!!!! Tomorrow we are going over to the Rhine River and hope to tour several castles! We will start posting pictures once we have some pretty ones and not just ones of us looking REALLY tired and in the same clothes we had on 2 days ago! Chat with you all later... after I have had some much needed sleep!

Debbie

At the Airport...

Well, all has gone well until...we get to Houston! Our flight to London has been delayed a couple of hours so we are just hanging out watching very amusing people go by! The very "nice" customer service lady "who doesn't know our names" said it would be a tight connection once were arrive in London! Oh boy...  Anyway, we are training for our run through the London airport by walking laps through Bush International to pass the time. We have been entertaining ourselves with the photobooth shop on the computer! We are having a blast already!!! Talk with you later~

Debbie and Karen

Last Minute Prep

We are feverishly working to get it all done!!!!! Our next post will be once we are actually at the airport waiting for our flight to leave! Don't forget to check back in a couple of days!