A little bit of home

Our micro home

Living in Colorado for the three years before we moved to Germany was amazing.  One would think living in Colorado that you would have constant visitor in and out.  Well now that we have lived in Germany for the last 6 months our landlord thinks we are running a hostel our of our tiny studio apartment.  Our latest visitors are close friends from Columbus Ohio, my home town.  This visitation was going to be a test on how many people we could sleep in this micro room.  Brian Peterson, and David Alsbach were the first to arrive.  The following day Graham Davis arrived, it was a comical sight watching him and David play footsie on the couch when it was time to turn the lights out.  A few days after Graham pulled in, Jeremy Douglas stepped off the train and strolled up to the house.  That's FIVE full grown men and a micro woman staying in a 30X20 foot room, with one washroom.  And on one night of drinking we also had a friend Alex stay the night.  The week they were here was a good time and it was great having a piece of home here visiting.

The boys chillin at the boulders

Everyone was pretty ambivalent about what they wanted to do and see while here.  David was psyched to try and find some of the local reptile inhabitants.  Unfortunately Germany is not known for it "herps" so it was pretty uneventful in that department.  We made a trip down to the northern part of the Black Forest where there are suppose to be a good variety of herps.  We didn't find much that day but had a great time walking the German country side.  We did however find a few things throughout the week, LOTS of frogs, a newt, a few little lizards and a nice sized legless lizard. 

David getting ready to go find some HERPS

TOAD

Frog Butt

Little Lizard

Brian capturing a photo of a little guy

Froggy

Little froggy

Little Toad

Frisbee Frog

Everyone else wanted to climb a little in the Pfalz, see a little, swim a little (it was crazy hot that week) and eat and drink some good food.  We went out to the local boulders a few days.  The guys had fun, failed some, sent some and had a good time in the forest.  At the end of each day we all jumped into the lake, well except for David (big whimp!!!!).  We all got the idea to try and learn how to swim the butterfly stroke.  For the most part we all sucked and looked like flailing injured wannabe dolphins that barely made any progress.  Aw well it was a great time hangin in the lake.  I later looked up how to swim this stoke and it turns out we were doing it completely wrong! 

Brian slapping some slopers

Brian grabbin some crimps

Graham trying not to crimp the crimps

Jeremy taken it down

Jeremy tryin to take it down

Graham tryin to take it down

Brian sanding his tips away on this bad azz problem

So close buddy!

Julie sending causally as usual

I took the guys to Heidelberg one day since it is a pretty cool little town with a lot to see and do.  Getting there was interesting, the five of us crammed into a tiny BMW for the hour drive.  I drew the short straw and had to sit "b*tch" in the back seat.  After about 20 minutes my bum was numb, and not really being able to move made it even worse mentally.  I couldn't wait to get there, once there I made a stand that I will never do that again!  We saw all the typical touristy sights and ate some good food and beer.  On another day we stopped by a local Midevil Festival that was going on.  Seems they take that kind of thing serious over here.  Being there reminded me of a movie I love to watch, Role Models, except times 10.  They would shoot each other with bows and arrows, use real swards and armor.  They had built and stayed in there own little village in the park for the weekend.  I was definitely glad we made it to this little event.

The last two nights we had plans to eat at our little local restaurant.  The girls that own the restaurant have had a bottle of Absinthe that they were eager to drink and share with us.  Little did they know this group of men could drink!  Apparently there is a special way to drink it, which includes sugar and lighting the drink on fire!  My first attempt at this left a huge flame on the table that took more than just me to blow it out.  It was a interesting drink the I think everyone needs to experience in there life time.  The following evening was a bourbon night.  The girls have never tasted a Kentucky bourbon, so I bought a few bottles from the liquor store on base and we proceeded to shoot, sip, and chug some bourbon.  Needless to say we were all pretty drunk after these two days.  Its a bummer I do not have photos of these drinking nights, Julie's IPhone was stolen at a store early the following day.