Monday, April 26

We sadly said “Auf Wiedersehen” and "Danke schönd" to Ulrike. What a fantastic experience this has been for us! Even Julius, who was not feeling well, got out of bed to come and say good-bye. We hope that from our comparing notes of how we live and how we view the world, the Reyhns learned from us as much as we learned from them. Hopefully, someday the Reyhns will be able to visit us in South Dakota!

We headed out to tour the Black Forest region of Germany with our tour guides, Annabelle and Guido. We used our Garmin to help navigate-Lucy (our nick name for our GPS) has learned German but her navigational skills are still undependable, so it's good we have an old fashioned map! We were very impressed with Annabelle and Guido's driving skills on the autobahn. As we headed south, we saw a noticeable difference in the greenness of the trees. Plentiful rain and warm weather has the German countryside glowing!

Our first major stop was Baden-Baden, a town we briefly visited in 1993 and have been wanting to go back to ever since! It did not disappoint. We enjoyed an outdoor lunch, toured the ancient Roman baths, and found the town even more charming and picturesque than we remembered. Then we were back on the road to Freiburg. We have heard from many people that Freiburg is a must-see place. Seth told us when he was teaching an English class, his pupils were to complete the phrase, “If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be in----” and about 7 out of 10 said, “Freiburg.” And we would agree with them! We found rooms in a quaint little place that also had a bar and restaurant and was oozing with what Dick refers to “local color.” We ended up going to a Mexican restaurant so we could have drinks as well as beer. The service left a lot to be desired, but the food was good, it was a beautiful evening as we dined outside under a full moon rising over the hills above us. Plus, we got a different sort of local color as we watched some well-lit, college guys,trying to pick up girls from a nearby table!