Guten Rutsch!

The past week has been a bit of a second honeymoon for us. First, Paris for Christmas, but it was quite quiet in Tübingen the week between Christmas and New Year's and so we slept in, read a lot of books, and taken a break from our intense German courses. Some of the books we're reading are on German history, which is quite a heterogeneous macabre. I've discovered too that I have quite the horrified fascination with the Middle Ages. What an awful time to be alive! Joe has always loved Greek and Roman history, so he's happy that I have a budding interest in that as well, especially since remnants of Roman settlements can be found along the Neckar River just a few kilometers from our house. Here's a picture of me coming to terms with this history.

We've also had quite a nice New Year's, or Sylvester as it is called here. A refreshing change from the over-hyped parties one feels they need to attend in the US. Joe will take over telling you about it:

Blast upper center; landlord in smoke.

"New Years was a blast, too --literally.  There were lots, dare I say tons, of fireworks at the New Year.  It was amazing; I don’t know if there is a single word to describe it, so here is a paragraph:
There was a build up all day.  After night fall, it increased to a few loud booms every 10minutes or so.  Around 10pm some people started with the expensive rockets and mortars, which made quite a display of light.  From 11:50 until about 12:30 there was a continuous light and sound show.  There was a gunpowder haze wafting through the streets.  We had our 7€ worth of bottle rockets and fountains to add to the neighborhood show.  Our landlord is 70 or 80 years old, and he was very cavalier lighting off rockets and firecrackers which would be illegal in the US.  Even with all that exploded paper refuse, our street were clean before noon on New Year’s Day; however there are still some rocket remnants on roofs.  But public spaces are still filthy with spent ordinance casings.

But as fun as fireworks are, they were only just an intermission to our Settlers of Catan game.  Another American couple (Chris & Rachel) came to our place for raclette, i.e. grilled veggies covered by different types of grill-melted cheese.  And they have the Ritter Sport expansion pack for Settlers of Catan.  Ritter Sport is a huge chocolate manufacturer based just 20km from us, so their expansion pack allows for cocoa production.  Game points can be earned for manufacturing different Ritter Sport chocolate bars.  ...so  it made the board bigger and game play more interesting.  We played until 2am, fueled in part by actual Ritter Sport chocolate bars.

In our cheese & chocolate hangover, all of us (us + Chris&Rachel) took the train to Ulm.  Which is ~60km West of Tubingen.  It has the tallest church in the world at 161m (a little over half of the Eiffel tower).  There are 768 steps to the top, and we climbed them and were rewarded with a great view."

Betsy notes: It was once again reinforced that no holiday goes without its own baked good. We picked up this "Neujahrbretzel" at the bakery and had it for breakfast on New Year's morning. That is sugar, not salt.

Until our next adventure we wish all of you a "Guten Rutsch" (good slide) into the New Year.