When you get to the end of your rope...

How does it go...when you get to the end of your rope.....tie a knot and hang on!
Well sure enough, when I had about had it and let everyone know about it in last week's blog...What happens??  The workers finally showed up and started digging trenches to lay in the high speed internet cable.  Oh Happy Day!!   I finally see light at the end of the tunnel!
They have spent two days lifting up pavers, digging trenches with the little blue tractor thingey...Is it called a bobcat or something?   And they have been digging by hand as well.  It is very rocky and the dirt is a reddish orange color.  They have barricades and flashing lights around each little trench.  Of course, they sweep as they go.  They are very clean and tidy.  Now the next step is to wire inside the house.  That is hopefully going to happen this week.  Just know that I have tied that knot and I am hanging on for dear life!   

Pretty exciting stuff!  I took this picture from my front steps.  The steps you can see in the picture are our neighbor's steps in the other half of the duplex.

On Saturday, Mike and I went exploring. One of my favorite things to do.  We went to Bad Durkheim which is a village about 45 minutes away.  They were having a flea market and those are always fun.  We couldn't find the exact location so we both took a turn at using our awful german to ask directions.  I asked a whole paragraph's worth in german only to have the nice lady say to me "Do you speak English?"  Which of course would have been so much easier from the beginning, but silly me...I didn't ask.  She was British not German!  
We didn't find much to buy at the Floh Markt but we did get some grapes and tomatoes from the fruit and veggie vendor.  I saw some neat old stained glass windows and almost bought them, but decide to look around some more.  I wasn't too crazy about the design.  It was just like an oval easter egg in the middle of all clear leaded glass.   As you can see in the picture, Mike found something to eat. Currywurst.  It's a popular fast food dish here.  Sliced bratwurst in a red curry sauce served with either Pommes (french fries) or a Brötchen (hard roll).  It's pretty yummy.   Speaking of yummy....I got on the scales today and OMGosh!   I have got to step away from the chocolate, brats and potatoes!!   The food is just too good over here.

After the flea market we found our way to the trail up to the castle.  It is an old fortress type castle you can walk all over.  You do have to pay once you get to the inner courtyards but we didn't have time for that much exploring.  You can see where they have had to reconstruct parts of the old walls with newer materials.  In fact they had scaffolding up over one of the big turrets and were doing a lot of restoration work on it.

Well as you can see from all the pics, the castle was very interesting.  I wish I had found out more about the history of it.  I will do some research and come back to this blog entry and add some details.  


Travis had a very interesting and unforgettable experience this week.  After a bit of searching around we found out there is a Kaiserslautern Lacrosse team.  They are a club team and are comprised of mostly college aged Germans, but some high school aged kids as well.  They compete with other teams within about a 3 hour drive area.  After contacting the coach, he invited Travis to come out and scrimmage with them on Saturday.  Travis thought he would give it a try.  It was pouring down rain, not drizzling, POURING!!  They were scrimmaging against a Stuttgart team.  Travis was the smallest and the youngest, but he played well and seemed to fit in okay.  But after 3 hours of practice and scrimmaging, they all gathered around for the after game treats.....a case of BEER!   HAHA!!  Isn't that funny!  Well that fact aside, he said the language barrier was very tough, and although the guys were nice and fun to play with, he doesn't think it's a good fit for him right now.    We sure had fun watching him and watching one of our favorite sports in the world....even if we were drowned rats at the end of it all.


One last note...the X5 finally showed up.  We went to pick it up and the battery was dead.  They had tried to jump it and fried some of the electrical systems.  It was covered with a crust of sea salt, too!   It will have to go in to the shop this week and get fixed.  Then we will sell the little BMW that Mike's been driving around.   


Well that's it for this week.   We are thinking about all of you.  Don't forget we have a guest room here with a nice queen size bed just waiting for a guest or two!  


love and miss you all!
-corri