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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Germany Day 5 (Christmas!)

In Germany (or, at least, in the family with which we were staying), Christmas presents were opened on Christmas Eve. We got some books about the area which was great because it filled in some gaps that we were not able to see while we were there. After, breakfast, we got into the car again and drove for about forty-five minutes east towards what was East Germany.

We stopped before our final destination to see a recently discovered 5th century BC Celtic burial mound. We stayed long enough to get some pictures. They found several statues on the site and restored the mound to its original shape. The mound had essentially been eroded and plowed for centuries. I am still wondering what the ditches represented as they seem to have no real function.

After this, we drove to Büdingen, which is very near the border with the old East Germany. In fact, this town is still an American Army base after we had seen the most of the old town. Now, on our arrival to the old town of Büdingen, we saw a cafe which served both tea and cannabis. That was a very strange sight indeed and one of the ways in which we knew that we were definitely in a different country with different ideas about drugs.

Essentially, we wandered around the old town taking pictures of all the half-timber buildings. We ended up having to use the bathrooms only to discover that neither the Church nor around town had bathrooms open to the public on Christmas. This made the next part of our trip a bit uncomfortable.

Once we drove past the American base a few times trying to find out way out of the town, we were on our way to a castle in the area. We first had to find a spot to find relief but that was not too hard to find in the area. It is amazing that there is still that much tree coverage in Germany today. I would have figured that development would have cut them down by now.

I cannot remember the name of the castle off the top of my head anymore. I will have to talk to my friend to see. We wandered around the castle for a while. It was a fairly late castle but it was interesting to finally get inside one of the many different castles that we had seen while we were there on just about every hill.

After a couple of hours at the castle, we made our way home for a fantastic goose and duck dinner. I had never had either before so it was quite a treat to try these. Wow, was it good.


posted by Chris  #5:32 PM | 0 comments |