Introductory Post and Some Misc. Pictures From the Weekend

That's a long title!!  Maybe I should have thought of something different?!  I have three weekends to post about, so I hope you enjoy all the posts and pictures!!  It was my original intention to have some of these posts up last week, but that obviously didn't work out. :)  We've been very busy!!!  I hope to remedy the lack of posts now. :)  Blessings to you all!!

Three weeks ago, the day after daddy got back from Africa, he was able to leave work early.  That was a real blessing, because we were able to leave earlier for our weekend adventure!!  We did a lot in three days (much of which was driving time - daddy did a great job traversing the autobahn, road construction, endless traffic, as well as former eastern block roads!)  We were mainly in eastern Germany and even though its been 23 years since the wall came down, it's amazing how the atmosphere feels different over there - a feeling of stepping back in time somewhat.  We had a great but busy weekend.

Brief overview:

Day One: 

• Driving, driving, and more driving (you get the idea! :) - it wasn't that bad though.
• Wartburg Castle!  Hideout of Martin Luther after the Diet of Worms.  
• Exploring the town of Eisenach (below Wartburg Castle) and visiting the church where both Martin Luther and Johann Sebastian Bach sang in the choir when they were young (obviously years apart :)
• *Interesting Note* - Both Bach and Luther lived in Eisenach as young men.  It was interesting to think that when Luther came here to study before becoming a monk, he had no idea that he'd be coming back as a refugee to the castle!!
• We arrive at our place of residence for the weekend - a 400 year old German farm!!

Day Two:

• After GPS problems (a must have when traveling over here!!) and getting a later start, we decide against our original plan of going to Poland and a couple of destinations there.  Instead, we break up our destinations for the following day and...
• Visited Wittenberg!!!  Saw the "Castle Church" where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses, toured the old town (very quaint and pleasant!), visited the Luther family home there and enjoyed some delicious ice cream while listening to an open air band (more like an orchestra) - very pretty!
• Got home at a descent hour and prepared for the next day by watching a documentary - "The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall".

Day Three:

• We visited Berlin! Wow - what a history packed city!!  We went through Check Point Charlie, visited Brandenburg Gate, had some great conversations with locals, visited the remaining portion of the Berlin wall, got to see Dietrich Bonhoeffer's house and got stuck in BAD traffic on the way home!!

Enjoy all of the posts and pictures!!!

Most of the places we went this weekend
(except Erfurt - this is where Luther's monastery is and we didn't make it there.)

We drove through Frankfurt!

Frankfurt from inside of my van window

We passed what we thought looked very much like a volcanic mountain!!  Isn't that strange?!!

After further research, we found out that Germany does in fact have its own set of volcanic mountains, so this may have been one of them!

Sunset

Wartburg Castle grows smaller as we travel on near sunset (I wish I could have gotten it without telephone poles!!)

(more on the castle soon)

Eastern German landscape looks much different!

Coming up on another village

Lots of windmills!!

The backseat crew

(+ myself behind the camera :)

The road ahead!

Funny story:  Here in Germany, you don't see as many police out on the roads, but there are a LOT more cameras!!  Sometimes you'll be driving down the road and then be like "I think we just got flashed!" (even if you aren't speeding and obviously if you are too).  Anyway, when I took this picture and the camera flashed, daddy thought it was an outside camera snapping our car instead of mine!!

Scenery

I was trying to get a picture of Sayer and this is what I got - it's his new favorite thing to do 

That's much better

This little village reminded us more of home - wider streets and a more open layout!!!

An interesting bridge we passed over

The picture doesn't do it justice out the window as it was a very pretty view!!

This is what we ran into coming home - BAD traffic!!

Sadly, there was a bad accident on the road and that plus road work do not mix well.

Sunset!

I really liked this photo with the plane going across and the colors of sunset.