Where have the weeks gone?

Our 4th week in Germany is almost over... the time has flown by fast.  Yesterday we had the pleasure of spending our day with Britta.  Our Rhine excursion on the boat was a lot of fun.  I was definitely impressed by the size of this boat.  I thought we would be on a little ferry boat or something of the sort.  Although it was raining and it got a little too windy to sit up on the top deck, I always enjoy talking to the people on this trip.  Not only has this trip been such a great experience of Germany and the history of medicine, it has been an opportunity to meet some really great people that I probably would have never met; they would just be another face in the crowd of 50,000 students.

After our tour on the Rhine we had lunch in a local restaurant in Rhens.  I had schnitzel once again, it seems to be consistently good wherever I go.  After my delicious lunch, we got back on our really cool charter bus, cool because we each had two seats to ourselves and we got to watch Little Miss Sunshine and Ratatouille, unless you are Evan, in which he had 4 seats to himself:)  Watching American movies was a nice break from Germany... I start to feel kind of homesick every now and then, but watching those movies made things much better!  I'm ready for more Germany now!  After lunch we arrived at Stolzenfels castle and had a good little hike up to it.  I know I will have really nice calves and thighs when I leave here- watch out! haha  The castle was really neat because it had all of the old knight armor and swords, but it wasn't as elaborate as Neuschwanstein.  ;)  It was really neat to see a replica painting of the three kings with Mary and Jesus along with Ursula, because we had seen this painting in the Cologne Cathedral.  One of the most mind blowing things at the castle was the replica of the Cologne cathedral made of sugar!  We could have done the experience without the bees though... darn bees.

After our tour with the castle we got back on our awesome bus and went to Ahrweiler to have our wine tasting.  It was really neat to see how they keep the wine and how they paint they decipher red wine barrels from rose wines by just painting a simple red rim around the barrel.  I thoroughly enjoyed the wine tasting.  It was informative, and so gooooood. 

The way back home was great.  I was a kid again, playing games at the back of the bus.  Good times, good times.  I like excursions such as these in which I can see and learn about beautiful places, drink good wine, and laugh with great friends.