Our trip to the Farmer's Market

Okay so I always thought farmer's markets were on the small side but Saturday the Schmid family met us in Ravensburg to show us the farmer's market. It was anything but small. People and stands everywhere. I took a couple of pictures but I need to do better at taking pictures when we are out. When you are in such close quarters with others and you have someone showing you around I guess I feel kind of silly.

 

 Farmer's Market. Not the best view but by the time I decided I should just take a picture and quite being shy we were headed out and didn't circle around like I thought we would.

Walking down the street in Ravensburg. The Farmer's Market is held on the oldest street in Ravensburg. It is still a cobblestone street and is very narrow. They close the street to traffic during the hours of the farmers market. From what the Schmid family told us most of the other streets are paved now and there is only cobblestone where motorized vehicles are not allowed except for this street.

We are going back next week so I will put the camera in my pocket instead of the backpack and act more touristy and take more pictures but these give you an idea of what things look like.

The Schmid family also told us that there are plaques in the cobblestone sidewalks in places where Jews used to work or live. They will have the Jew's name and what happened to them, whether they escaped and to where if known or what concentration camps they got sent to and what happened to them there.

It is hard to take pictures and remember all that is being shown and told. Herr Schmid (the father) was telling us about old buildings and different stories about things in the area. The Schmid family has also been very kind to us. They have been letting us use their car and we thought it was so we could get neccessaties, Spencer's bus pass and other such things but every time we ask about returning the car they say we can do it later. Saturday they also told us if we want to do any traveling we are welcome to borrow their car. We are looking into whether it would be cheaper or not, depending on where we go but it has been very nice to have a car when we need it instead of having to rely solely on the buses and trains. Although Sunday we were spoiled because we got to drive to church. We only had to leave 20 minutes before church started. It was very nice because today there was a cold wind again. It  really makes you grateful for what you have when you have to do things a different way for a while, although sometimes you learn better ways to do things.

Anyway until next time

Welcome to Our Tour

Pictures on the road to our apartment from Weingarten, where Spencer's school is.

Entering Gaisbeuren, Germany

Turning off of the main road towards our apartment.

Coming up the hill to our apartment.

 Street view of our apartment. We live on the ground floor or floor 0 as they call it here.

The tour of our apartment in Gaisbeuren, Germany! 

View towards our Landlord's (Herr(Mr.) and Frau(Mrs.) Rebmann) house. Their son and grandchildren playing.

Views from our apartment and along in front of the Rebmann's house

 

Pictures from about the middle of the driveway looking towards Gaisbeuren

View back towards our apartment

View from our front door 

View towards town from the Rebmann's house

The Rebmann's yard. They told us to let Elise make herself at home and play with anything and she definitely taken them up on it. She loves to go outside and play, especially when the other kids are outside. There are three sons that live close. One has a boy that is 20 months old (Pascal), the other has a boy that is 4 years old (Max), the other son close doesn't have kids and then there is a fourth son that lives in Stuttgart but has been visiting (about 2 hours north) that has two sons that are 4 (Phillip) and 7 (David). They have all been so nice and helpful. Most of them except the parents speak some English so we get by, sometimes we also need our hands and feet though :). They are all very nice in helping me work on my German and they get to practice their English too. We do have quite the mix here on the farm though. There are obviously German people here, then you have us Americans and then the one son is married to a women from France, the renters above us are Turkish and the son from Stuttgart is married to a women from Korea.

Spencer and Elise playing in the yard.

The gazebo. This one is mostly for Susan because Spencer says she has always wanted a gazebo but just her luck it might be used similar to this one.

Flowers in front of the Rebmann's house. Are you jealous? I was definitely ready for some flowers at home and from the time we got here there has been spring flowers everywhere you look. On our way to Ravensburg on Saturday we stopped at a stop light and there was a big grassy area covered in Crocuses that were absolutely beautiful. (I didn't get the camera out fast enough. Maybe next week when we are there I will take a picture, if I remember.)

 Belle the dog. She is an old dog and has a very mellow temperament much like Spencer's dog Timmy and Elise loves her. Every time we go outside she searches for her. 

Elise and Belle keeping an eye on things around the farm. Elise is a much more active watcher than Belle. Belle wanders some but only until she finds her next look out point to lay down and watch. Elise on the other hand has to go, go, go, anywhere and everywhere.

Fun Times!

Before we left for Germany we had a party with my siblings at mom and dad's and were lucky enough to have Aunt Joan join us. She brought her dog Misty with her. The kids were having loads of fun taking her for walks and climbing in and out of her cage and then decided it would be just as fun to climb in and out together. They did this off and on all evening and the next day.

Carter, Stetson and Elise the day before we left. They were trying to pose for a grand kid picture but were having to much fun to be really helpful so I guess we just got a picture of their true personalities.

We tried putting Elise's hair in a ponytail for the first time today. Silly pictures I know but we thought they were fun because we actually could get her hair in a ponytail and it shows how grown up she looks, way tooooo grown up. She looks unhappy but she really was just sitting there patiently.

posing for the picture

Soooo cute!

We made it to Germany!!!!

We finally made it to Germany. After months of anticipation and a lot of preparation we are here.

I don't know if I am going to get pictures into this post but I wanted to get something up and make sure people could read it. Also if you know of someone I haven't invited to see our blog or that may want to please send me their emails. We don't mind people seeing it we just didn't want it opened up to the whole world but we also don't want to forget anybody.

Anyway back to Germany. We live in a village called Gaisbeuren near Bad Waldsee. It is really pretty here and there is a lot more open countryside than I thought there would  be. We have about a 20 minute bus ride for Spencer to get to school or for us to do major grocery shopping. There is a smaller grocery store in Bad Waldsee which is about 10 minutes away. We can easily catch the bus to get where we need to go the only catch is since our village is small we have to really watch the bus schedule so that we don't miss our last bus home. This gets especially tricky on Sundays. There are two buses out of here on Sunday and they are both in the afternoon and our church is at 9:30. Luckily this is what the bus depot people told us. We found one other option besides walking about 1 hour to Bad Waldsee and catching the train. The way we get to church is we walk about 10 minutes from our house to the bus stop, we catch a bus to Aulendorf (which is quite a ways north of us) for about a 13 minute ride and then we wait at least 20 minutes and then we have to catch the train (which was 10 minutes late Sunday) to take a 10 minute train ride to Ravensburg where we then walk about 30 more minutes to our small branch. It is a round about way to get there but unless we wanted to walk all the way there which is like walking from Oxford to Preston it was the only reasonable way. Spencer is still working on getting his student bus pass which he can't get until the stipend is sent through but anyway then hopefully to get to church and to go anywhere on the weekends or evenings will be free for all of us. Yesterday it cost us 11,60 euro or about $15 dollars to get to and from church. I'm not telling you this for any reason other than so you can get an idea of how different it is and how we have to do things here. So church on Sunday was in the top of a business next to a car dealership. The branch consisted of about 10 people and Elise not only made up the nursery but the entire primary (she was the only kid there Sunday). We were told that usually the branch is bigger (whatever that means) and that there are some kids so we will have to wait and see next week.

We have met some really nice people so far. In fact everyone has been very nice to us. We have been very taken care of and spoiled. We had two options of housing before we came. One was with a father and two sons on their farm and the other was a little apartment that another family had in town. We chose the apartment because we weren't so sure about living right with a family we knew nothing about. Well come to find out the father and two sons does not live on a farm, he is a retired school teacher and the family "in town" lives on a farm. Not that it is a big farm but it was just kind of funny that they got that confused. We do live in a furnished apartment that actually is usually rented out as a vacation retreat apartment. It is probably a little bigger than our apartment in Logan but with less rooms. Not that we need this much space but it was the only good option. The kitchen and front room are one room then there is a small entry way, then Elise's bedroom and ours, separated by a curtain and then the bathroom. Germans used to be taxed on how many rooms they had and closets counted so many homes the rooms tend to be connected and you have a wardrobe instead of a closet. I will hopefully get a video of our apartment posted if not I will at least get some pictures posted soon. So the father and two sons have been very nice to us. We just met the father for about 30 seconds this morning (he picked Spencer up today) but we have had quite a bit to do with the older son. He offered to come get us from the airport which we learned meant he drove about 2 hours one way to get us. His father had done some grocery shopping for us so that we would have a few things before we could get to the store, and he was very thoughtful of Elise in what he bought. They also bought a new sim card (minutes for the phone) for their old cell phone and gave it to us. None of which they would let us pay for. So you see we have been very spoiled and taken care of. I think it is still best that we have our own space but we do want to get to know this family better and hopefully invite them over for dinner soon.

Anyway my brain is racing in a million directions and I want to get this up before Elise wakes up but we are all doing well, adjusting to the 8 hour time difference pretty well and having a very enjoyable experience. I will write again soon to fill in any holes and keep you all up to date and will get some pics up.