well, it's been almost a week now.

Two things: I am growing fond of the mineral water. I loathe the bottle caps that have an attached ring.

Last wednesday, we had the Rhine tour. I actually almost missed Loreley and I have to say she was a little anticlimatic. I had this big rock that split the river in two envisioned in my head. Still, cutting through the rolling hills all topped with castles on the river was beautiful. We topped the afternoon off with a hike to one of those castles and wine tasting. I really enjoyed the last wine that went down like kool-aid. I also got to eat schnitzel for the first time that day. It was just as good as my friend told me it would be.

The highlight of Thursday was the trip to the Koln zoo, where we got an up close view of their baby elephant. It reminded me of a scene from Jurrasic Park. The elephant kept blowing his horn with ferocious force and the gates were all electronically locked and retracted. It was some time getting to see the trainer feed the elephant. The animal really seemed to have a relationship with the trainer and the trainer probably slept at the park most nights.

On friday, we watched a movie about Sophie Scholl, a university student who stood up to the Nazi movement. Her courage to hold on to her own convictions was inspiring. I believe i would have cracked under all that pressure.

I spent that weekend in Zurich. It was a beautiful city with a river running up the middle. On Saturday, i hiked the planetenweg, or the planetary way. It was a trail leading along a ridge above zurich. Along the path, models of the planets of our solar system were mounted at scaled distances along the path. The set-up was realling laughable because most of the planets just looked like little beebees. Pluto was also included. The best part of Zurich was the lecker chocolate. It was surprisingly cheap compared to everthing else sold in that city. Also, the money there was amazing. It looked like it should have been in an art museum instead of stuffed in your jean pockets.

Anyways, my fingers are tired of pecking at this blackberry as evidenced by the typos.