The true reason I got there in the first place was visiting my Grandma who will turn 100 years this summer. My husband Chris just lost both of his Grandmas within a 5 week span and therefore I am even more thankful to have seen my Grandma again!
With our final good-bye's she said:
"The next time you come and visit I will be on travel".
This almost broke my heart.
Here are some of the many pictures I took while being in Germany:
At a pond near my brother's house
In a bakery...gosh, so gooooood bread!
Schloss Solms, Braunfels Castle (that lord here made New Braunfels in Texas!!)
A saying in my brother's bathroom 'kommt her ihr kinder, hoeret mir zu, ich will euch die furcht des Herren lehren' - come to me, my children, I want to teach you about the allmight of the Lord'
Plaque at my brother's house...built in 1682 as school house, it got used until 1868
The market place just below the castle walls
outside of the castle
Me, my brother and his sons
Cake and Plaetzchen!
My nephews, Nick (left) and Luke
the Germans do drive a hot rod, too!
In my home town of Plettenberg
It's very hilly, the street runs down there at the river
a walk through the forest
Houses do look different in Germany
voila, a Cocker Spaniel with its natural long tail (Germany banned cropping of ears and tails like 20 years ago!)
the very old station of Plettenberg
There are actual opening hours in Germany. We almost got thrown out of this store due to closing time!
Plettenberg does have some pretty houses!
Morning fog over Plettenberg - view from my Mom's balcony
Burgruine Schwarzenberg - ruins of Schwarzenberg castle - I was here with Chris when he visited me in 2003
look how thick this actual castle wall is...it's like 4 feet wide!
View from the Engelbert Stuhl down to river Lenne
our city church in Plettenberg
closest buildings to the church are all timber framed houses
the 'Auermuehle' in Ratingen where I met 2 of my girl friends. It's an old mill that used water power. Now it's a nice hidden restaurant in the forest - so pretty!
me, Anke and Katja
Chris' Grandma just died two weeks prior and got cremated. I took some ashes with me to Germany. I found some bark and put the ashes on it together with some pretty flowers. Chris Gram's father came from Germany (last name was Stall), and she was of Dutch decent, too. Now this little creek will join the river Rhein that flows through the Netherlands into the North Sea and in there will go to America....
this is the one and only Neandertal, where the first 'human remains' got found! - I believe.
Neuss, another city to visit my dearest Lester Andrea
So sweet, in her apartment I found a honeymoon picture of me and Chris in London in front of tower bridge!
Inner City of Neuss just for pedestrians and shops
a brown Doberman uncropped
Zeughaus in Neuss
Meat section
Yep, German grocery stores carry beer and wine. And lots of them!!!
Look what I found!!
Finally..horsey contact again!
Me and my friends Andrea and Susanne. I boarded Frisby with their horses. Actually, Frisby was living together with Susanne's horses before I bought him!
Blue Moon...beer for one, insurance agency for the others!
Me and my friend Anja with whom I learned holistic stuff for animals!
A typical German graveyard
If people live in apartment buildings and therefore do not have a backyard, they often rent or buy a little 'Schrebergarten', a patch of land they use as their own backyard in between other people with the same fate.
Restaurant 'Kastanie'. Chris and I had our wedding reception there for all my German friends and family.
Me and my friend Alice who I know from the barn when getting back into riding.
My 'Lester' Andrea's (left) and my actual wedding ring. It is actual pretty frightning how much stuff we have the same without even knowing from each other (when we met the first time, she drove the same car, just a different color, and her passenger door knob was broken as was mine! And while visiting me for the first time in my apartment, she saw a pair of my shoes and said she has the same ones. Now with moving to Parker, I needed some curtain panels for our master bedroom and bought white ones at IKEA just to see that Andrea has the EXACT same (color and all) hanging in her bedroom). Therefore actually no real surprise that she liked the TENO ring that I actually wear as my wedding band that she never paid attention to...I still believe that my Mom was pregnant 3 times and gave her oldest kid away...hahaha
Back in Braunfels little streets with timber framed houses
Easter tradition in Germany...to hang plastic decorative eggs in some plant that sits in front of the house. Or if you don't have a plant, you just make one in taking some Forsynthia branches, put them in a vase and hang the eggs from it
...or like this. This is on the market square in Braunfels
Market square with view to one of the three arches that leads you to the castle (and my brother's house)
3rd arch with view down to the market that you can't see from this perspective
Me in front of the entrance to the castle
Yep, everything planty works!
Sunday morning when I needed to leave again. Good-bye picture with my nephews Nick and Luke
Just for the American mothers here....this is the weekly plan of Nick as a second grader...you see that he comes home at noon...you see that?
4 comments:
Marion! So beautiful! Everything is so quaint and charming...and the bakery...are you kidding me? I would visit there and never want to leave. I could look at your photos of Germany for hours.
Hi! Ist das typisch, dass die Kinder nur bis 12 zur Schule gehen? Wenn ja, warum?
12? 12 Jahre oder 12 Klassen? Nein, Grundschulen gehen hier meist bis zur 6. Klasse, dann geht's zur Mittelschule (7-9. Klasse), danach (10-12 Klasse) in die Highschool.
Haha, jetzt lese ich den Blog erstmal durch und sehe, Du meinst Uhrzeit..lach...ja, die Kinder sind erst in der 1. und 3. Klasse, da geht's noch gemuetlich zu. Hier in Colorado ist mein Kind von 8:30 bis 15:30 jeden Tag in der ersten Klasse in der Schule. Viel zu lang, wie ich finde!
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