So it has been a very long time since I posted. Sorry about that. I am staying with a family in Homburg, Saarland and having a very good time. I don´t have a ton of computer time, so I haven´t been able to post any photos, but I will try to do that when I get back to the von Bibra´s if I don´t have time to do it before then...

The Seitz have 9 children, yes, 9 of them...and all of them who are over the age of 4 play an instrument and the children who are older than 9 play 2,3, or 4 of them. There is a lot of practicing of instruments around this house.

I´ve been able to adjust well, though I still wish I knew how to help more.
Jemima, the baby, must be teething or something, because she has been fussy and crying nearly incessantly today...

I´m going to go and see if I can be of help before bed time...

"It was the best of times..." Charles Dickens

I have finally succeeded in loading some more pictures on my blog. I have quite a few this time...
Carrie, Jane, and Ray all made it back to Washington safely. Now I just have 4 weeks until I follow....

Last Sunday we all went to the Rhein after church to grill. I'd never been to this place, but it was right at the foot of the Drachenfels and was very beautiful. Here's Amelie blowing on the fire.

And our grill location from a distance. We were by a little inlet from the river and had a sort of rocky beach. It was very pleasant.

Amelie took this photo. It's me throwing a rock (with style) into the river...

And here's the action shot of Amelie throwing a rock into the river...

On our way from the car to the grilling location on the river Amadeus spotted this prime piece of firewood and decided to bring it along. After not too long Amelie helped him...

Question: What do you do when your turkey steak is too hot?

Cool it off in the Rhine, of course. And that's exactly what Amadeus is doing. (We [Americans] watched, somewhat horrified, but containing our laughter.)

Amadeus with Rhine-washed turkey in hand retreating from from the water...

"mmmm. This is tasty--not too hot anymore. I'm going to go sit on my mommy's lap now..."

Mommy, very unconcerned that her son is eating a turkey steak that has been dipped---nay, washed--in the Rhine River. I'd bet she's never had giardia...

The kid, however, seems to display no signs of sickness.

Insa! She was our first exchange student. She sends her greetings to the whole Boothman family...

There's Insa and her mom, Roswitha. We went to their house after grilling on the Rhine and had some tasty ice cream.

On Saturday, while Carrie was have a party going to Switzerland and over into France from staying with friends for the weekend in southern Germany, Jane and Ray and I went for a bike ride to Bonn. After sitting here on the Rhine (Ray is resting on top of the monkey bars) and hanging out we went and got something to eat and then went to the coolest little coffee shop. It's very artsy and at the same time classy and gemütlich (untranslatible word: means something like cozy, warm atmosphere, you want to be there. Places with flourescent lights, for example, probably aren't gemütlich)...the coffee was also excellent.

Carrie and I got up at 4:30 after staying in Dusseldorf with Yuting, one of Mengni's friends. She was very kind and hospitable (and made probably the best breakfast sandwich I've ever eaten). We took a taxi to the airport [that was carrie's idea, and I'm sure that I speak for her too when I say: it was totally worth it!). We got checked in with no problems and both the bags (carrie took one home for me, thanks carrie!) were under the weight limit. We were a little worried about one but it passed no problem.

We then had time to enjoy a nice cup of coffee together and read the bible before I sent her through security. She wrote me earlier and told me that she arrived safely in Washington!

Yuting also made us a lovely little dinner the night before we left. The tomatoes were tasty, but I couldn't eat all of them and didn't want to leave just a few...so carrie took one for the team and ate them, bravely. She likes tomatoes alright, but they're not (I think I've got this right) her favourite to eat plain.

The following few are of the central station in Bonn. I couldn't decide which one I liked best. I took two in B&W, but I like the colour of the blue pole, a lot. I also like the light coming through the tunnel thing, which can be better seen in the colour ones...

And here are some of the beans that I got from my garden this morning (and a lone carrot, which tasted excellent...I thinned the carrots again so that the ones left can grow bigger.) The vegetable soup that I made shortly after this photo was taken was delicious. I used the seasoning that Mrs. M and I bought at one of the markets in Paris.

Travelling Street Musicians

Hi, I just tried to load several pictures and they disappeared somewhere, which probably means I excited the window without realizing it. Bummer. I'm trying again but I don't know how far I'll get before I go to bed.

Today we sang for about 1/2 an hour in Bad Godesberg and made about 22 euro. Then we walked to the Rhein and took a boat tour to Linz (pictures below)...

But first I have some pictures of the hike that I did with some of the navi's on Sunday... We hiked up to the legendary Drachenfels: where Siegfried allegedly slew the dragon...

The view south. Those are both islands, actually. The one on the left is harder to see. But the one on the right there has a bording school on it, which is only accessible by ferry.

View from the top of the hike in the direction of Cologne (North)...

Here's the view of the Drachenfels from the bottom. We hiked down a different way than we went up. It was beautiful with all the vineyards around.

Ray in a play helicopter.

Jane painting on the street in Bad Godesberg

Jane and Ray today on the boat. This is the same boat that the pope was on...it's really big. The guy told me that it was 24 meters wide.

Here is the view of the Drachenfels from the River.

We had a barbeque this evening with sausage and bread dough, which we roasted on sticks. We browned the sausage first and then wrapped the dough around it and then cooked the dough. We also roasted marshmellows. Angelika had never heard of roasting marshmellows before.

Pictures-updated

Ok, so now I've got time to post about the pictures....First, though, we had an amazing day today, which consisted of: sleeping in, playing boggle at breakfast, and then going into Bad-Godesberg and singing on the street for money. This was a very fun experience. Carrie, Jane, and I sang gospel/spiritual type songs while Ray played a bucket for a drum. We gathered first around an old clock in the city and began to sing...we sang and people stopped to watch and drop money in our hat. The more people that watched [and gave money] the better we sang. (kind of like Mike and Mariann). We sang at this location for maybe 30 or 40 minutes but had to stop when this lady came out and showed us some ordinance or something stating that street musicians are only aloud to play for 30 minutes in one spot and that they aren't aloud to play at all in that area between 1-3pm. So we decided to get some lunch. After eating some delicious sandwiches we set up in a different place.

There were these really cute british kids who had all given us money [from their mom] during the first time. They were really excited to see us again and all sat down and were our audience. They were drumming along with Ray, and snapping or clapping along.

Then we walked home.

Now on the stove is some delicious taco soup and in the oven is some corn bread!

Ray, Jane, Carrie, and I after our street performing in Bad-Godesberg.



The Following pictures are one of each of us on the morning that Efraim left. After I took one of everybody to put on my blog they sort of insisted that I have mine on there too...

Carrie

me

Raymond

Efraim, the polish guy who drove us back here to Germany...

Jane

Jane and Ray looking really happy... This was on our walk back from Bad-Godesberg the other day.



And this one is kind of old. It's on the bus in Slovakia when we were travelling back to Cieszyn [poland] and the train tracks were under construction or something so they had to stuff us all ont busses. We were really packed in there. The picture is not the best quality, but I think that it captures the feeling of being on there better. We stood for probably 20 minutes or 1/2 an hour on the bus before it even started driving...

Here are the Boothman sisters with Mata in Slovakia...

When we were in Slovakia we went to a zoo (which I think I said before). Anyway, there was this petting zoo with really cute little balck sheep that were the same size as the goat in this picture but with really curly jet-black hair. I just thought this was a funny picture because I'm looking at the goat and enjoying it and the kid is staring at me...

Here's all of us. Ray, Jane, Annie, Alana, me, and Carrie...

Annie and Alana are now back in the states and the others are with me in Germany.

happy

Carrie and I went to Einstein Cafe. They actually have americanos (I've only seen them at Starbucks before this) and their coffee tastes good.

1)I went shopping, and

2) I found and bought stuff that I like, and

3) I had a good time!

Need I explain more?

Last night eating our delicious spaghetti!

Ok, dinner time now. I'm going to go...