Weimar

After Easter we went for a three day trip to Weimar in Thuringia - the city where Goethe and Schiller lived and were the first first parliament of the German republic had their first sessions.This was our first trip to this German state in the center of the country.
The statue of the two famous poets in from of the National Theater

The two other friends on the market square

The castle

Goethe's garden house

The famous Thuringia sausages

We checked out the famous Duchess Anna Amelia library

And of course the house were Goethe lived 200 hundred years ago:

Every room was described in an audio guide

Goethe's office

Unchanged from the time he worked there

 The yard

 A piece of the former Berlin wall behind our hotel

First visit at the Hair Salon

 Mia went for the first time to a hair salon to get a more professional hair cut

A Visit from France

Mia's school has organized an exchange with a french school at the Atlantic coast and the French students came to Heidelberg first. We were hosting one student and picked her up from the bus on Thursday.ehrn they arrived after a 1000 km trip

 On Friday the French students explore the old town - unfortunately the weather was not so nice

In the evening we watched a movie in French with German subtitles- this helped break the ice a bit

Saturday it was raining in the morning but in the afternoon the girls went to the zoo.
Sunday the visitor wanted to go to Stuttgart to see the Mercedes Bez museum there:

Then we found a nice German resturant with local food for dinner

 
Monday the students explore the nature together and walked with alpakas

At home the girls finished the insect hotel which was part of the project

We put it in our community garden

On the last day they went kayaking - unfortunatley Mia and her partner captized and ended up in the cold water

On a rainy Friday morning the bus headed back to the French Atlantic coast

Mia will do the return visit in May

Papa's Birthday

After a week in Hamburg to help Ji's friensd we stopped in Cologne for a little birthday get together.
First we stopped in Bensberg for coffee and cake

We left at sunset to join a party at Stefan's place

When we left the next morning there was time for a selfie in fron of the cathedral

Our train took the scenic route along the Rhine:

Unpacking a package back home

Kleinfischlingen

Stefan came for a short visit to see some friends from Finland who were in the area to participate in an exchange with a school in Wiesloch only 16 km south if Heidelberg. It turned out that part of the program on this Sunday was a tour of a winery in Kleinfischlingen - is a municipality in Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinata across the Rhine. One of the local teachers had grown up at the winery and had organized a private tour where we could join.

A lot of wine was stored in huge stainless steel tanks

A wine tasting was part of the tour but Mia of course had some grape juice -it had wone a gold medal at some competition. Luckily she had  brought a book