hello from pleinfeld...

a small town outside of nurnberg. since our last post we have been in a new town every night. it has been fun and difficult at times...arriving at a new city, getting off the train, searching for the tourist center to ask for a map and list of hotels and hostels, walking all over the city looking for a place to stay the night...(yes we could have booked them early but where is the adventure in that). many times when we finally find a room free it is getting dark and we have enough time to have dinner and see some of the city at night. then we get up early the next morning and put our bags in lockers at the train station so we can see some of the city by day before we have to jump on the next train to our next destination. we have covered munich (the highlight being the hofbrauhous (http://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/) and the giant steins of beer we drank ...rachael drank two...pictures to come soon hopefully), heidelberg (we toured the castle there), cologne (we saw the huge cologne cathedral, it houses the supposed bones of the three magi) and last night took the train here to cecilys house in pleinfeld. she is teaching class today and when she is done we will take her moms car to kreinitz to stay the weekend with her family. we are looking forward to spending some relaxing time in a small quiet town with good food and company, some walks by the elbe river and maybe even a bike ride. unfortunately we still cant post any more new pics but hope to this weekend. love ya! steph (and rach)

p.s. on the way to kreinitz we stopped and met cecily's grandparents for a few minutes. we had chocolate and practiced our german. grandpa had a crush on rachael...he called her his christmas angel.