Sinsheim - 23 March (Mon)

We stayed up late on Sunday and ended up making a list of possible things to do while we were in Stuttgart. It basically filled up the rest of the week, but all depends on having good weather. We're heading to the Black Forest today (Monday), but we're going to take a day trip to a really nice technology museum north of Stuttgart - in Sinsheim.

We had a nice breakfast (Brotzeit) again with coffee and the day looked pretty good from the balcony. It wasn't sunny, but it wasn't raining. It was windy though. That was ok with us because we were going to be in the car or inside for a good part of the day. Alex had borrowed a car from his parents (a VW Passat), so we were able to drive on the Autobahn north of Stuttgart to Sinsheim. This is not far from Heidelberg and directly across from Hoffenheim. (Hoffenheim is one of the fast rising teams in the German soccer league - we could see the brand new stadium from the highway).

The Sinsheim museum was incredible. It was a huge collection of cars, motorcycles, airplanes, military vehicles, engines and other mechanical things (they even had a collection of sewing machines). The car collection was huge! I've never seen so many Ferraris, but they also had 8 or more Rolls Royces, countless Mercedes of all ages, American cars and just about everything you can imagine. There were huge train engines and even a submarine engine. There were small airplanes inside and then outside they had a Concorde and a Russian Tupolev (rival of the Concorde). There was so much to see that the boys were able to run around and around. We were able to take our time and see a good bit of the museum ourselves!

We took a break in the middle of the tour and had lunch in the museum cafeteria. Here they served some regional specialties - Spaetzle and Linzen Wiener (Lentils and Sausage). They also had a very nice playground. Even though it was very windy and ours were the only kids in the whole museum, the boys had a really great time!

We left the Museum in the middle of the afternoon and headed south, past Karlsruhe through Achern to Sasbachwalden. Achern is the largest (small) town near Sasbachwalden. Alex and Ramona actually went to high school (Gymnasium) in Achern because Sasbachwalden doesn't have a high school.

We stopped by Ramona's parents' house in Sasbachwalden to borrow a snowsuit and some gloves. The snowsuit was from one of Ramona's younger siblings. It fit Finn pretty well. It was nice to meet Ramona's mother, but we only saw her for a few minutes. Alex had assured us that there was still lots of snow, but we were in Sasbachwalden and still didn't see any snow. Still, we didn't have any snow clothes for Keane. We drove back to Achern to try a couple of different stores. We weren't ready to buy him $30 pants so he could play in the snow for one day. We stopped by the "Kik" discount clothing store (which reminded me of a Dollar General). We found some rain pants that were just his size for $1 Euro! We also found some fleece hats for $0.10 Euro (that's right 10 cents!) We bought four of them!

So, we were pretty well equipped - except for good shoes, but we would make due. We drove through Sasbachwalden and then up and up and up. It turns out that Alex's parents live in upper Sasbachwalden! There was a LOT of snow on the ground. Some of the snow drifts were 5 feet high!

We had heard so much about Angelica and Gerhard from Alex. It was great to finally meet them. They were incredibly nice and were thrilled to finally meet us too. They were already preparing dinner. We got to bring our things inside and get to know them. Angelica can speak a fair amount of English and her German was very clear to me (I think she had lived in the Augsburg area when she was younger, so she didn't have such a strong Badisch accent as Gerhard). Maybe I was already accustomed to the Badisch accent from talking with Alex, because I could understand Gerhard's German pretty well too.

Angelica had made a wonderful dinner which she served in several courses. Alex had made some special requests, but the presentation of everything was very special. The boys thought this was really fun! They also tried and loved everything she served. We had Flädlesuppe (broth soup with thin strips of pancake in it). Next was salad. Third was Sauerbraten (marinated for 4 days) and then roasted (this was incredibly tender!). The meat was served with cheese Spaetzle. Dessert was Ice Cream with home made strawberry sauce that Angelica had made and canned herself. Wow! We felt like royalty!

Gerhard had to leave dinner early because he works as a volunteer fireman and they had a drill during the night. He came home around 11:00 (they had practiced an auto rescue with the jaws-of-life). He got to finish his dinner. The boys were already asleep. Alex and I had continued testing different beers and even some Schnapps. (Note to self: "Schnapps" in German is the word for liquor (higher alcohol content). They use "liqueur" for schnapps (lower alcohol, flavored with fruit or herbs.) We had to share one more beer with Gerhard since he had been working all night outside. I would regret that last one in the morning!