Ansbach Church Festival

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeniferlawson0117/AnsbachChurchFestival?feat=directlink

We made it out of the hotel yesterday. Thankfully one of Jim's sponsor drug us out for the afternoon. It was a beautiful day and we were greatful for the excuse to get out of the rather noisy hotel.

Ansbach is as pretty as we thought it would be. I was taken back by all of the architecture. It was.. well its hard to describe with the right words, but it was amazing. The roads in old Ansbach were rather narrow, and the buildings are all two to three stories tall so it was awe-inspiring. We are excited to go back when the festival isnt going on to get a better perspective of the town.

The festival itself was fun. It was centered around the church, as things should be, it was called the church festival (not because of the location) because all of the local churches were doing raffles for donations and were doing bake sales, stuff like that. The sponsors wife was working iwth her church, she is a local German, and she helped walk us through some of the customs. She didnt realise we had been in the country for only 4 days and took pity on us after she learned that. The German's so far have been super sweet and have not seem offended that we dont speak their language. In my pessimistic opinion its because we are walking bags of money, but who knows, they could really like us as a whole. :0) Speaking of money, I had my first experience with euro's. I felt like a child asking what this count meant or what that paper was. But I have to remember that like a child I need to ask to learn these things, and hopefully, soon enough it will be second nature to me.

Back to the festival. We hung out in a little courtyard and had lunch. It was a slab of pig swiming in a broth and a ball of this gelatonious potatoe thing that the girls loved. It couldnt get past how it stuck together. But to each his own, right? The bottle out here are all glass and I kept seeing kids walking around with what looked like beer bottles that were actually filled with apple and pear juice. It was a shock to say the least.

After lunch we headed to the kids park and they played in the water fountain and got soaked. Jim was like a shadow to them, it was cute. With time he will be able to sit back and relax, but for now its nice for me to get a break and do just that, relax. After that we headed for the "horsey" area. Both girls loved hanging on those toys. The carousel was next. The kids all got three rides and they just loved it. The carousel was in perfect condition, it was a traveling one but looked like it was stored all year long only taken out for this occasion. Amazing how people take care of their things out here. Everything was super clean and recycling is taken seriously here too, nothing wasted, I cant wait to learn more about that.

About that time the girls started to meltdown so we made plans to get come gelato and head home. But first we had to have faces painted. Carmen loved her pink face and the sparkles! Oh and the gelato? oh please, the stuff in America is a horrible copy of the real stuff... yummmmmy is all I can say.

The roads everywhere are original to the townsquare and are cobblestoned. Even where you would drive, its amazing. I asked how they keep it maintained and wastold that if a stone breaks a specialized team comes out removes that stone and then replaces it with another and then fills in the cement mixture that matches exactly with the original mixture. Again, amazing! to take the time to do it correctly the first time. No potholes here!!!

Carmen had to take a nap, well both girls went down, but Carmen had a whole face of paint she went to sleep with, it was funny because when she got up she was covered, her eye to her ear, her hair to her dress with pink!! too funny. Actually, she is sitting on the bed next to me and has pink in her hair still, I guess I should bathe her, huh?

Well, I have loaded pictures of the town for you. We will have more of course as time go.

toodles everyone,

The Fam