"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagnination, and life to everything." ~ Plato


Wednesday, June 22, 2011

158 - Bad Kreuznach ~ Europe Day 2!

June 1, 2011 – In Germany: Bad Kreuznach 

Bad Kreuznach is a quaint little town, clean, with cobblestone streets and brick buildings.  I’ve been struck by the strangeness of seeing 21st C life happening in the midst of medieval architecture.  Today, we got up around 7:30, had breakfast (which was SO GOOD!) in the hotel by 9, and had a walking tour of the city for about an hour and a half.  Our guide was full of political information – past and present – about Germany and it was really quite interesting!


Our guide, telling us about a statue. 

The town is picturesque and beautiful.  The old part was my favorite – it is more quiet and quaint.  I could picture myself living here!  J 

What a lot of the buildings look like - so lovely!
We had free time from noon to 5, so I wanted the town and ate lunch with various COW people.  Spent my first euros on postcards and a sandwich.  Haha.  I’m glad to know “Danke” (thank you).  I spent the rest of my free time in our hotel’s thermal baths, which are warm and salty.  It felt nice to relax (oh, yeah!  I’m on vacation!) 
We had dinner in the hotel (just as good as breakfast) and then had a choir concert in St. Paul’s Church here in town. 
Hey look!  It's us!
It went well overall and the audience was extremely warm and appreciative.  A reception followed – German pretzels (yum!) and wine.  Had my first!  Haha.  Tried a glass of red and a glass of white.  The area is known for its wine, the white in particular and, despite my limited experience, it was quite good!
Here’s to new experiences and great music!

Love&Harmony,
Erin

157 - Off We Go! Europe Day 1

May 31, 2011 – In Germany!

I’m overseas!!  Farthest I’ve ever been away from home in my life!  Today (and technically yesterday) has been an exhausting one of basically travel.  

Waiting to leave at SeaTac!  So excited!
We left SeaTac at 6:45pm on a 9 hour flight to Heathrow Airport in London and arrived there around 11:50.  I didn’t really sleep at all – dozed here and there, but a comfortable position evaded me (surprise, surprise). 
The second flight (London to Frankfurt) was delayed for a bit in both boarding and take-off, but it was just an hour long in terms of air time.  Then we had an hour long bus ride to our current town – Bad Kreuznach – and our spa hotel, the Domina. It’s pretty schnazzy.  J

Dinner was in a local restaurant at about 8:30 this evening.  We got lost walking there for a bit (thank goodness for our fully-fluent-in-German British tour guide Jenny!) The meal was 3 courses of what I guess is traditional German fare.  First course, a to die for creamy asparagus soup; second, melt-in-your-mouth meatloaf and spatzle (German pan noodles); and dessert was a strange but delicious strawberry-filled dumpling thing under a warm, sweet cream sauce.
The best part was that Steph could eat it!  :D  Yay for our first meal abroad!
I’m falling asleep writing this, so now it’s time to go…
Gute Nacht!

Love&Harmony,
Erin

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Blogger's Guilt

I am working on the blogs!  Still taking pictures every day, but I don't want to upload days out of order...I'm doing my best!!

Love&Harmony,
Erin

Monday, June 13, 2011

Back!

Got home yesterday at about 4:40pm... and basically fell into bed right after dinner. 
I'm working on organizing pictures and finishing up journal accounts.  I'll start working on uploading entries (along with today's) tomorrow!

Love&Harmony,
Erin