Friday 22 May

Regensburg is a really nice little city. It had a lot of shopping and Claudia got a great new dress, shoes and purse. I saw some really nice things as well, but they were quite expensive. I loved this leather shoulder bag with a large flap, but it was 200 Euros. I refrained from buying it, only to regret that later this summer. Emma got a copy of Freckle Face Strawberry in German which she was really happy with since she was learning a lot of German while there. James got a set of stamps which he enjoyed. I found that I have been really drawn to yellow, there was a great outfit there all in yellow, with an amazing coordinating purse. I saw a wonderful antique stand for a pocket watch but it was 400 Euros. I wanted to get it for Carl, but that was just too expensive.
The Cathedral in Regensburg was really nice, not as much gold but the outside was very ornate with a lot of stone work. The tomb underneath the had all the priests for it starting in 697. You just can’t find that history in the USA. The Cathedral was originally built in the roman style, but then was either torn down or destroyed then the gothic cathedral was built upon it. We also went into a protestant church. It was built in the 1600s, very old and impressive. Emma, James and Claudia went up into the bell tower. Later at 4pm we stopped for dinner. The kids got chicken strips with salad. Surprisingly James didn’t like it. It was more like real bread crumbs and the ketchup was more like tomato paste thinned out with tomato sauce, not the sugary American stuff. So, needless to say, dinner was a fight to get the kids to eat it. Carl got a sausage salad, but it truly was a plate of sausage swimming in vinegar, he choked down almost half of it, before Claudia couldn’t take it and traded with him.
After dinner we left Regensburg and drove to Bischofswiesen in the south, our next youth hostel waiting for us. Carl was really impressed, within 100 km of the hostel we could start to see the mountains. They sprung straight up out of the earth. Just as impressive as the Tetons, even more so maybe. It was nice and cool up in the mountains. When we set up our room in the hostel the kids didn’t want to go on a walk so just Carl, Claudia, Anna and I went. It was a nice walk, Anna ran most of the way. She is so cute with her dimples, hair, personality – just the whole package. By the time we got back, Emma was asleep and we weren’t even gone very long.