Leaving Burggen - 18 March (Wed)

This has only been the first stage of our three stage trip. We had originally planned to leave Burggen around 9:00am and head north to Buchbrunn, but we found that the train tickets would be almost half as much if we left at 1:00 instead of 9:00. We called Mary Schleyer in Buchbrunn to make sure that arriving around 6:00 was ok with them. She, of course, said no problem. That gave us an extra morning in Burggen.

Keane definitely wanted to go to school with Jakob. This time he wanted to go first thing in the morning instead of waiting until mid-morning. So, he popped out of bed, got dressed and went down to eat breakfast with Jakob and Dominik. When the neightborhood kids showed up, Keane headed to school with everyone. Jakob was nervous on the first days to use his English, but by Monday afternoon, he really started to use it more and more.




Finn wanted to wait until later to go to school, so Finn and I drove Burkhard to work in Schongau, because we thought we would need the car to get to the train station. Burkhard drove on the way so I could make sure I knew which way to go. Then, I got to drive in Germany for my first time AND try to remember where I had to go. Finn helped me remember and we got back home just fine.

Finn, Marget, Penny and I walked to the bakery and to the grocery store to pick up some things. We didn't quite realize that Marget was packing a bag of goodies for us to take along with us. We also bought some treats and some stamps for the postcards we were going to write on the train. (Stamps for mailing a postcard back to the states cost 1 Euro).







Back at home, we decided to ride to Schwasoien - a small village north of Burggen, west of Schongau where Marget grew up. Her father was at home working in the yard - splitting wood (with a machine log splitter). They also have a farmhouse with a barn. They still keep cows in the barn. The main walls in the house are over 300 years old! It was fantastic to meet and talk to her father (he also speaks no English).







Fresh, raw milk was delicious. The signs on the wall are awarded from a local office that show the average milk production for the cows in his barn each year. Each sign has a year written on it near the top - his oldest one is 1978. (Notice the scar on Keane's chin from the bike wreck yesterday).




Marget's brother is building a new house behind the parents' house. Marget's sister-in-law walked up just as we arrived, so we got a tour of the house under construction. It was a beautiful two-story house (plus a basement with an office) and was already a year and a half under construction. They should be moving in very soon.



Back in Burggen, we packed everything, which went very quickly - we only have a few bags. We made lunch and the boys (except Dominik) came home from school. Marget made us spaghetti with sauce and then we loaded up the car - everyone squeezed in and we even picked up Burkhard at work on the way to the train station.

We left at 13:04. We'll definitely be looking for a time in the future to come back to Burggen and see the Scholz family.