5/8/05

(caleb)
Today we had a little last minute shopping to do and we wanted to take in the sights of Amsterdam and Europe in general for our last day in our trip.
We both agree that a trip before the wedding(especally one that tests your ability to communicate and make decisions together) was the best way to go for us and would recommend it to anyone considering a long term relationship.
This has been one long adventure full of mishaps and good times. We learned that no matter what we are always going to be with each other and we will always love each other. I think that this trip has definatly made our relationship stronger and we cannot imagine life without each other. We are so glad that we got to share it with everyone that we met on the trip and with the people that we love. Thank you to everyone who supported us and communicated with us. We both agree that we would take this trip again in a second.

5/7/05

We had one last travel day on our Eurail Pass so we decided to make a couple day trips. We stopped off first in the quaint town of Delft. Delft also has many canals like Amsterdam, but was less scary junkies and coffeeshops. We came to Delft primarily to check out their well know Saturday Flea market. We just sort of happened upon it while walking through town. So lucky we are! We found some cool stuff.
(caleb)
We hopped back on the train and went to Utrecht. We walked to the tourist office but it was closed. But we took lots of nice pictures. Its a nice place, but everyone still drives those bikes from the 50's so there must be a lot of thevery.
(Angie)
To get out of the train station you had to walk throug one of the largest shopping malls I have seen in Europe, all of the shops were closing though. Everything everywhere was just closing when we got to Utrecht, so we just walked around. It looks almost like Delft. Cobblestone streets, lots of brick buildings and churches and tours. Tulips are in bloom so they are on sale everywhere. Close to 7PM we got a train back to Amsterdam. We took the tram to Dam square. Upon our return to Amsterdam we stopped by Albert Heijn, our favorite Dutch market, to get breakfast for tomorrow. When we checked out the cashier shorted us change back by more than 5 euro! However, we didnt realize this until we got outside. So we had to go back inside and talk to get the cashier and then to his manager. The security officer had to watch the cecurity tape to see if the cashier actually shorted us. Well it turned out the tape backed up our story and they gave us the difference that they shorted us. Such great excitement! hehe
Our tent is snuggly warm. It has been nice and cool here in Holland.

5/6/05

(caleb)
Today we left France. But before we left we decided to go to the doctor because Angie had somthing strange looking on her tongue. THe prognosis was that it was a fungus so we got some Antibiotics for it so hopefully it will clear up.
(angie)
It was very sad to say goodbye to our great friend Carine. She was such a gracious and generous host and we will miss her and her awesome friends SO MUCH! Caleb and I were just saying how Paris seemed like home for only a little over a week. We took a Thalys train from Paris->Brussels and then Intercity trains to Amsterdam. We have been to visit Amsterdam a few tiems on our trip here. It is familiar to us now. We know how to use the transportation system and where to stay. We are camping for the rest of our trip which we are excited to get back to actually. We set up our tent in the only field we hadnt camped in at zeeburg. Nice location. We just relaxed and hung out at our campsite because the weather was warmish and sunny. Lots of campers here this time and everyone was hanging out at their site. Cool atmosphere.

5/5/05

(caleb)
Today we visited Carine's brother Benoit, sister-in-law Sophie, and neice Altar. We packed most of our gear then we had brunch at there apartment. The place was decorated with objects from Mongolia. From there we went to an icecream shop that was close to Notredam. The line was 15 minutes long for the "best icecream in Paris". Angie had the Chocolate and Carmel, and I ate the Fig and Ruhbarb. We soaked up what was left of the sun and then went for milkshakes. We then went to a cafe called no stress. The food was nice and so was the Atmosphere. We walked to the Mulan Rouge and then to the cafe where Amile from Motmare was filmed. It seems like they changed it a little for the movie.

5/4/05

(caleb)
Finally, the Lourve! It was a marathon museum day, we spent over 6 hours in the museum but we saw the WHOLE THING! We hardly took any breaks and we were moving through pretty fast. Its funny how when you look at that much art that at the end of the day your brain feels like mush. But there were many wonderful things to see. Even though the building has been remodeled many times over the centureis, you still get a deep sence of history just from being there.

5/3/05

(caleb)
We took the day off today. We were plannin on seeing the Lourve, but instead we did laundry and relaxed at the apartment. It has a balcony that is very Parision. It rained and it was sunny at the same time.

5/2/05

(caleb)
We slept in today and then went to meet our friend Davi. We got on the wrong train and then ended up being an hour late. We then met up with Elodie and then took us around the largest flee market in Paris. Afterwards went to Carines friends house for snacks and drinks.

5/1/05

(caleb)
Today we rented rollerblades and skated to the Eiffel tower for brunch. We spent the afternoon in the sunshine on the grass under the tower. Angie had a little trouble getting uste to her skates but she soon found her self keeping up with everyone. After we turned in our rollerblades we went to a cafe by the Basteel to have drinks.

1/30/05

Carine, being the responsible business owner that she is, had to work all day today.
French food is so wondeful, we are so happy to be here. There is somthing very romantic about this city. The city is also suprisingly clean. I don't know if it is the new mayor or the fact that everyone was sick of living in trash, but it seems like people really care about what stuff around here looks like and dont litter very much.

Honistly neither of us can remember what exactly we did on this day. Thats what happins when you don't keep up with your journal very well.

1/29/05

We met our friend Davi again in Paris. First we went to Per Lachaise Cemetery to se where among other famous dead people, Jim Morrison from the Doors is buried there. It is a huge cemetery. We spent abouth an hour just walking around. Ive never seen such beautiful grave markers in my live. Some where a but creepy too, like there was one where only the arms were reaching out of the sarcophagus. Next we walked to the Montmare area and the huge cathedral on the hill. Sacre Cauer. There is a fantastic view of the city from up there. We had some great chinese food for not to expencive. We met Carine at her office and then went to her friends house to drink wine and eat some snacks and hang out. We took a taxi home, and so did Davi.

4/28/05

(caleb)
We decided to do some sightseeing on our own today. We went to the old oprahouse, from there the Madeline. Built in 1764, it was finished in 1842 and is a nice big building(it takes up a whole block) and the entrance is free. Then the Concord with the Egyption Obelisque. Then we walked though the Jardin destuileries to find at the end, the Louvre. We walked along the Sen river until we came to Notredam. We didnt want to wait through the giant line to go up to the top so we snuck in through the exit. It is much more impressive on the outside than the inside, but there is a giant stained glass window that is very impressive.
We then jumped onto the metro and went to "chinatown" which turned out to be just a bunch of Asian restraunts. We decided to call it a day.

4/27/05

We unintentionally slept in this morning. Once awake we called our friend Davi from Brazil who is also in Paris for a couple of weeks visiting his sister and her husband with his mom, dad, and older brother. We met Davi on the champs Elysee Virgin Megastore. I have to say that although much larger and more intricate, the public transportation in Paris, compared to Berlin, is much easier to navigate. From the Champs Elysee we went to see the Arc De Triomphe. From there we walked to see the Trocadiro and across the bridge is the most famous hunk of metal...the Eiffel tower. The line to go to the top, though usually an hour long, was short when we arrived. So we only waited like 10 minutes in line for entrance tickets. Unheardof good luck! The view from the top is unbelievable. You can see everything in Paris. The Louvre is by far the largest structure around. We had to walk up a lot of staris to get to the summit but each one was worth it. We tried to go to Pere Lechaise cemetery however, we arrived after 6PM, the closing time. We went with Davi to meet his family for dinner. They invited us to go with them to Bistro Romain. Fantastic food and so kind of his family to invite us. Davis family are genuinely nice people and we had a great time with them. They are so kind to try and speak english with us as much as possible, but Davi's dad speaks no english, so it is more difficult to communicate which is sad because he seems like a cool guy. Davi's mom is a force and is pretty great. She designs clothes in Brazil for boutiques and is doing research here in Paris. We took the train back to Carines and crashed after a long but super day!

4/26/05

About 1am the conductor set 3 indian people in the car with us. They spoke a litle french but no english. The one lady took up the two seats next to me by laying down on them. Fortunatly I got my small revenge because the potato salad wasnt quite out of my system yet. Muh hahaha
The one erson was playing Hindi music however, the earphones were not in his ears so it was very winey and high pitched coming from those little earphones. Angie came within seconds of smashing his CD player. About 2am the train aquired more cars. After spending 2 hours trying to get comfortable on the floor I finally convinced Angie to move to a less crowed car. The one person that was occupying the cabin that we moved to moved right away which was very nice of him because that ment that we got the cabin to ourselves for the last 2 hours of the train ride(much more comfortable)
The train to Brussels was a bit late but we had no problem catching our next train to rotterdam. We try to suck the marrow out of every train day so we squeezed in some sightseeing in. Rotterdam is very much a big city.
There are several good museums which we didnt have time to see. We took several photos, there are 2 bridges near each other that are quite beautiful. It is a lot of skyscrapers and shopping in Rotterdam. We are beginning to miss the mountians and forests of southern Germany and France after being in Berlin this past week. We missed our connecting train to Brussels to Paris so our schedule was thrown off 1 hour but no biggie. The French Thalys trains are quite nice, even 2nd class feels like 1st class. They are fast too. Probebly at least 150MPH. The colored pencils and anime coloring book we just got are coming in very handy. It really helps to pass the time on the train and there is somthing infinitely zen about coloring. God bless Crayola hehe.
We took an RER underground train to meet Carine, my close friend I have known for nearly 16 years, that lives in Paris. It was so fantastic to see her again. The last time was in 2001. We are staying with her for about a week while we are visiting Paris. Carine has the coolest job. She owns her own casting agency. Carine was also nice enough give us her bed and bedroom while we stay here. She is so generous :)

4/25/05

(caleb)We woke up and Angie gave me a nice hair cut. We checked out of the hostel at 12 and checked into some lockers to store our stuff. We walked out and saw the Judishes musem. We picked up a manga and some colored pencils for some on train entertainment. We got some food and beers for the train and then hung out at our hostel until it was time to leave. We made it to the train station with plunty of time to spare. We made small talk with the other passengers until it was time to leave. We had to sit somewhere else then our assigned seats because there were already other people in them. We didnt mind because we got lucky right away and got our own compartment. We wanted to keep it that way so we armed ourselves with german potato salad for dinner. The one mistake we made is that it got to stinkey in there even for us so about 12:30am we opened the window.

quick may update

hi everyone
we are in paris right now staying with my friend carine. we are having a fabulous time. not much time to internet tho so the full update may have to wait. next week is holland and then may 9 we fly home. mixed feelings about that. we cannot believe 6 months have gone by!

4/24/05

We got up bright and early at 1 in the afternoon. We had our breakfast and then hit the town again. We went to a flea market that was super overpriced. I think that you are suppost to barter but how can you barter when they ask 15€ for a pair of 20 year old sunglasses.
We got caught up on the blog and had pizza outside of the Kiserwhilhem Kirche(I will have to correct the spelling later) This church was heavily bombed in WWII and what remains is just the shell. The top is broken off so it looks very eerie.

4/23/05

Did we see Berlin, ir did we see BERLIN? Holy touring Batman! We got lucky and had beautiful weather for our sightseeing megathon today. We started off by going to the Pariser Platz where the Branderburger Tor(=gate) lies. This is the only surviving city gate from WWII and markes the western side of the main road. Unter den Linden. It was once the boundary beteen East and West Berlin. There was a huge children's festival going on all day so we walked around the gate to walk the length of the festival. Cool music and lots of fun stuff to look at. We stopped to have a Frickadelle for a early lunch. At the end of that blocked off road we saw the Siegessäule, a 67 meter tall tower/obelisk. Bulit in 1873, it commemorates 19th century prussian military adventures. Than we walked back thrugh the Tiergarten, a central Park equivalent for Berlin. Next to the huge Tiergarten was the Reichstag. Another landmark. It is a miyture of modern(the glass dome) and a more classical style of architecture. It bacame the seat of the German reunified Parliament in 1990. We wanted to go inside but the line was 100 meters outside the door. Then we walked to where a portion of the Berlin wall is still standing. They had an outdoor museum called Topography of terror that recounts the actions of the Reich befor and during WWII and the aftermath of the East/West Berlin, Germany and wall(built in 1961) It was very upsetting. Germans didnt have a chance once Hitler took control. Anyone who resisted was simply killed. Jewish or no. Then we walked just 200 meters to checkpoint charlie. The checkpoint remains in the middle of the street. It was eery to see. So many, over 1000 were killed trying to escape east berlin. There were black crosses setup on each side of the street to signify each person killed. A picture with their name and how thex were murdered was on each cross. I began to cry. Caleb and I signed this giant, no really, guestbook right next to checkpoint Charlie. A lift had to raise us off the floor ro sign it. It was the first time I ever signed my soon to be married name and I got very emotional. hehe
We walked back towards Unter den Linden on Friederichstrasse and came across a film that was shooting right on the street. They had blocked off a section of the road. We watched for a bit, interesting. Next we saw the Berliner Dom. Built in 1905 in the New Renaissance style, it is a former court church of the Hohenzollern family. We walked through an art fair and then continued across the Schlossbrüke, 4 marble statues line each side of the bridge. We kept walking until we came to the MarienKirche, a red brick Gothic style church. Just beyond is the Neptunebrunnen, a huge fountain on which king Neptune sits atop, hence the name. From there we could see the Rotes Rathhaus. We were also next to the 365 meter tall Fernsehturm(TV tower) Anywhere you are in Berlin you can see it, sort of like the space needle in Seattle. We got some groceries quick because everything will be closed tomorrow(crazy Europeans take a day off!) and continued onto AlexanderPlatz. It was bombed in WWII and reconstructed. This is where nearly 1,000,000 people rallied to have the Berlin Wall torn down and the GDR regime done away with. Thew were successful in 1989 the wall came down! We walked across Alexander Platz to see the world time clock. By then we were hungry and pooped so we went back to our hostel to eat, rest befor our Techno fest tonight. WOO HOO!
We went out to the Icon Club. They dont open until 11:30 and we got there just a little early and the guy at the door told us to come back in 3 minutes. It was getting cold by then so we just shivered until he let us in. The Place was like an underground bunker totally made of bricks with several different rooms and leather couches. The DJ started at 12 and it was nice D&B beats. It started out loud and as the night went on it just got louder. We met some nice people around 2 in the morning and had a nice political (among other topics) "discussion"(shouting is probebly a better word). We had a very nice time with good music until 4A. We were planning on closing down the bar but we were both exausted by this point and the music showed no sign of stopping. We missed an S-bahn and got on the wrong one so we didnt get back to our hostel until 6a.

4/22/05

Finally...Berlin! I have wanted to visit Berlin since I came to Germany in high school and every time since then, so I am pretty psyched to finally be going there. We packed up camp, but we had to wait for the tent to dry before packing it up because we will be ytaying in a hostel in berlin and at mz friend Carine's house in Paris so we won't camp again until May. We didnt want it to get all moldy and gross sooo...we missed our train. But no biggie cuz there was another one in 1 hour. We met a nice german man at the train depot. He and his wife are living and working for the past 3 years in ElPaso Texas. He is a military liaison of some sort. Finally the train. We get to take 2 high speed ICE trains today which makes the trip from Würzburg->Berlin much faster. Entertaining ourselves on the train is getting harder and harder. you can onlz play cards for son ling. Berlin is a HUGE city. It was a bit overwhelming at first especially since the first hostel we went to had no dorm beds so we had to find another. The guy at the hostel was nice enough to call ahead for us and check for availability. He even gave us directions to the other hostel. So the people at the Sunflower Hostel are super nice even if zou don' stay there. :) Our new hostel is pretty nice for the 14€ per night/PP price. The staff were extreamly welcoming and friendly, which at that point I welcomed because it took us a while to find this hostel. Very modern and classy decorations both in and out of the rooms. Caleb and I took showers right away after not showering at the last campground for 2 days(yikes)

4/21/05

Both of us woke up very early in the morning(middle of the night) to pee and saw that it had gotten so cold that there was a layer of ice all over the tent. I guess if we were Eskimos it would be insulation right? hehe So apparently Germany hasn't gotten the memo about it being the end of April and spring is here and winter weather should be over now. Brrrrrr it was freakin' cold last night! We do have sun today and no rain so we console ourselves with that small favor. :)
We really packed in the sightseeing in Würtzburg today. We saw the Residence and surrounding gardens(a palace designed by famous 18th century Architect Baltazar Neumann in the Baroque style). All the wall paintings were done by the famous Venetian Painter, Tiepolo. The palace has an adjoining "court church" where more paintings are found by Tiepolo. The baroque style just isn't fancy enough for me though. hahahaha It is a bit gaudy. So many architectural embellishments and everything is covered in gold. So they went cheap...Not! hehe We saw several churches in the Marien Kapelle(my fave!), Sehönborn Kapelle, St. Micheals Kapelle, st. Peters Kirche, and another Neumann work, the Käppele which is a top a very steep hill. We also went to see the Alte Mainbrüke on our way to the Fortress Marienberg(another castle) atop another very steep hill. So we got lots of exercise :) We snuck in seeing the basilica Neumünster. For a small city Würzburg is packed full of things to do and see. It is a very pretty city. It seems most people are quite well off here. No street people at all. We got some food cuz we really hadnt eaten a real meal all day. We made a German favorite, bratwurst with mustart for dinner. It is going to freeze again tonight. It is cold, very cold already. Once again we go to bed with the sun.

420 2005!!!

6:25am we awoke and packed up camp. fortunately the only thing that is wet is the tent. we packed up everything in the laundry room. we had to wait for the reception to open. they were supposed to open at 8am but they didnt actually open the doors until 8:20am. Luckily we still made it to our train with breakfast from our new favorite bakery in Oberammergau. We actually purchased a Bayern ticket today cuz it was cheaper to travel that way than to use a train day from our eurail pass. We made it to the train with only 30 seconds to spare. Our first change of train was Murnau and next Munich HBF. However the train we wanted to take to Wurzburg at that time only runs on Saturday and Sunday. So we had to wait for an hour an a half for the next train to Treuchtlingen to connect with wurzburg. So we went to do some cheap interneting. It is amazing how much more long distance international calls cost than internet and internet is very expensive. We did something very German today. We rode the train and ate our lunch on the train of prezels with mustard and german bakery bread with sausage and cheese. It was gut! Once in wurzburg we jumped on a tram (without paying! so naughty but cheap hehe) which took us right in front of our campground. This campground is right in the city on the west bank of the Main River. Surprisingly, it is fairly quiet and nice and comfortable for city camping. When we took our tent out it was completely soaked. As we arrived in Wurzburg it stopped raining and it didnt rain all night! Miracles do happen folks! It was the first time in almost a week that we went to sleep with a totally dry tent. It felt good in a way I thought I could never feel about a tent. we go to sleep with the sun when we are camping cuz it is tough to do anything without lights. For the second time in 2 weeks I had to do major surgery on mz big backpack. Thank god I thought to bring the sew kit cuz the whole bottom of my bag was coming off.

4/19/05 Tuesday

Still raining. It rained all night but we are dry inside our tent. We went into Oberammergau downtown to get breakfast. We found this little bakery(Backerei - Konditorie Franz und Roswitha Gschwendtrer) on Schnitzlergasse II and we shared what I believe is the best bakery I have ever eaten! We got 3 different kinds and all 3 were fantastic. After that we were equipped with enough energy to run a marathon. We took some photos of one of the most ornate painted buildings and the Pilatushaus and a couple of other buildings that have wall paintings. That is the big thing about Oberammergau, the painted buildings and the Passionspielhaus. Oberammergau puts on the largest inside passion play every year at easter. It is pretty famous. We got a phone card and called our families like good kids and did some internet then we went to the supermarket to fill up or food bag. We took back the food to our tent and made sandwiches and went for a hike. Like I said before, the trails are like 500 feet from our campground, so great. We ended up hiking over 3 hours. It was beautiful on our hike with mountians all around us and green grass and trees as far as the eye sees. It even slowed to a light trickle of rain for us! (caleb) there are huge snails and slugs everywhere. We touched one 4 1/2 inch black slug and it felt really cool. (angie) Upon our return Illi invited us into her caravan again. She is a strict Catholic so whe was watching the whole hullavaloo over the new pope in rome. Lots of change going on in the world right now. We played cards with Elli and had some snacks and then retired to our small tent home. It rained all night again! glad that we move on tomorrow.

4/18/05 Monday

Oberammergau, unfortunatly I believe is a bit colder then Schwangau and Füssen. It also rained all day and night. We do have a fantastic view of the mountians and forrest from our tent wow! This campground is nicer then the one in Schwangau. The ground is much softer which is great because that means we could put the tent up properly so that we remained dry and warm. There is a polish lady that works for the campground who has been very kind to us. She lis letting us keep our backpacks in her caravan so they dont get soaked. It has been raining since sunday and from sunday to monday caleb's backpack got soaked. So it is super nice to have a place for our stuff. She also had us over for tea and snacks in her caravan. She only speaks polish, a little more german then us, and like 6 english words. So communicating was a small task at times. But suprisingly successful. She lives in Poland about 150 K from the border of the Ukrainne and Chernobyl. Apparently her daughter and son and law and grandson lived near Chernobyl and there is still enough radioactive contamination in their area that her grandson was born with birth defects- so sad.
The campgrounds in Germany are more expencive the all the others at which we have spent time, but it is still 1/2 price of staying in a hostel. We did go on a short hike in the rain after dinner. It is awesome how close we are to several mountian hiking trails. We must only cross a bridge and voila!

4/17/05

We decided to rent bikes today to get a chance to tour around Füssen and rode though the Altes Stadt. We also saw the Rathaus. We discovered that it would be better to take a bus to our next destination- oberammergau while stopping at the train station. We once again forgot that it is Sunday, so our attempts to find an open bakery or market were thwarted until we came across a gas station close to our campground. (caleb) its so nice to see 100 different beers in a gas station. It takes a while to decide, I wish I could try them all. It rained so we took cover in our warm tent. Man it is COLD today Home Oberammerwau is warmer.

4/16/05

Wow! We saw a whole lotta castles today. We are lucky because we are within hiking distance of both Hoenschwangaw(origonally called Schwanstein) Castle and Neuschwanstein castle. We ate breakfast and got on our way. It was a 5 km walk to where you get tickets for the 2 castles. We toured Hohenschwangau first. Hohenschwangau was the castle king LudwigII grew up in. It isnt as large or ornate as Neuschwanstein but it was a cheery castle(golden yellow outside). Caleb thought that the castle looked more like a Museum inside than a castle. Paintings everywhere. The tour was a recorded audio tour but there was still a girl there to take us from room to room and point to the things of intrest mentioned on the audio tour. The climb up to Neuschwanstein was a bit steeper then the other castle. We were assigned a time to enter the castle for our tour, so while we waited for our number to come up we climbed a bit more to stand on the Mareienbrüke. This is a bridge that spans between tow peaks and over a waterfall. You also get a fantaistic view of the Neuschwanstein. I had been here before in high school and was to afraid to go out on the brige at the time, but this time No problem. Ok it was a little scary, but overcome. The we went on the guided tour through the castle. The tour group was large. Not all of the rooms were finished in the castle because King LudwigII was suspiciouslz found dead in inches of water(and was an excellent swimmer) So we only really toured 10-12 rooms. The most impressive rooms were the kings bedroom and the chapel and the singing hall. The kings bedroom was cool because we have never seen such intricate, beautiful woodwork anywhere. The bed frame top was several models of famous cathedral steeples. Very cool and gothic. The chapel was cool because it was one of the most colorful and cheerful chaples I have seen anywhere in europe(besides madrid) And the singing hall because of all the wall paintings and stage backdrop. It was designed by a theater designer and not an architect and you can tell. We walked back to the campground by following the waterfall which turned into a river behind the castle. It was very peaceful and pretty. Today was a great day.

4/15/05

We packed up camp at 8am to start moving towards or next destination, Schwangau. We are suing another one of our train days. We go from Bühl-baden baden-karlsruhe-stuttgart-augsburg-Füssen and from there we have to take a bus to our campground. All of the trains were on time and all of the rides went smoothly except for the train from Augsburg to Füssen. It was a small, 2 car train that was packed so full for the first 40 minutes of the ride that everyone was packed in like sardines. All of the corrigors were packed too, we were 2 of the lucky people who got to stand. After an hour and 4 stops the train cleared out enough so that we could have a seat. The weather is gorgeous today, sunny and super warm. Füssen and Schwandau are right next to the mountians. Our campground in Schwangau has a lake right next to it. Unfortunatly our campsite doesnt have a full view of the lake, but we have A view of the lake and a full view of the mountians. On the busride to the campground we got a peek at the Neuschwanstein! So awesome! It is staying light out longer and longer. It is snuggly inside our tent, but we can tell that it is going to be cold tonight since there is snow right by our tent.

to be continued...

4/14/05

Wow, it is crazy to think that is has been over 5 months that we have been traveling. This last part of our trip is going by much faster then the first 2-3 months. The first 2 months of our trip seemed to take a lifetime to pass. Other long term travelers told us that it would be this way. Today we got moving around a little earlier and took took the bus into Baden-baden. We payed for the first leg of our journey from Seestrasse in Oberbruch to Bühl(3€) but we just hopped on the back of the bus from Bühl->Baden-baden. Such rebels. It was a beautiful ride. The scenerz onlz got better as we got closer to Baden-baden. It is a prettz citz. There must be at least a little monez around here for some of these giant houses in the black forest hills. Our first hike was to the summit of one of those black forrest peaks where the spookey remains of an alte Schloß(old castle) reside. It was quite a hike and straight up. It got our hearts pumping. I can see where those hiking poles would come in handy for these kind of hikes. Lots of people use them here. The castle was really cool. You could climb all the way to the top for a fantastic panoramic view of the city and forrest. We found an area to sit for a while and take in the view. Caleb lost his "found watch" and was sad. As we climbed down there was stairs descending to a dungon area. I was scared but Caleb finally talked me into it. It was so spookey down there. Caleb said that it made the whole climb up there worth it. We were starting to get hungry for lunch so we found some bread and cheese at an open air parmet and some Frickadelles at a meat shop. We sat in the back of the Neues Schloß and ate or Frickadelle picnic. We saw a few more sights, mostly churches, which there are no shortage of in germany. Then we found some interent to update our blog and stay in contact with the outside world. We took the bus back to our sampsight in Oberburch. We made checken noodle soup and Milchrise for dinner. Its funny how early zou got to bed when you camp. Its like being a kid again.