jun

Rain, rain go away

Tubingen, Germany
Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Till had dragged out all his maps and books about the local area and armed me with dozens of places to go and explore. Our first stop was Rottenburg (not to be confused with Rothenburg) for coffee. I had acquired a book - a very good murder mystery and it was the first book I had had for 5 weeks. I started to devour it and before long, I realised we had spent over an hour in the coffee shop. Our second stop was Hohenzollern - an impressive castle perched on top of a hill with 360o views. The castle was fully restored and well kept. We couldn't enter the church as it was being used for a Japanese wedding - the bride wore a meringue.

We bought tickets for a tour of the castle but on further enquiry discovered the next tour in English was not for another 4 hours. We tagged along with the German tour and made up our own commentary by matching the guides gestures and expressions. It was quite an enjoyable tour actually, although we had to try very hard not to giggle too loudly and disturb the rest of the group.

When we returned outside, our 360o view had turned black. Rain clouds had closed in on all sides but it hadn't actually started raining. We donned wet weather gear and looked for our next destination on the map. We figured if we were going to get wet anyway we may as well see something while we were there. Unfortunately, the wind picked up rather severely indicating a wild storm and that put an end to any more sightseeing that day. We got back to Unterjesingen just as the sky cleared. I made myself a cuppa, settled in with my book and promptly fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon.

Natascha woke me about 5pm to say they had a special treat for us. They had hired a punt and we were going to have dinner on the river.

We met Till in Tubingen and the kids prepared the boat. It has these funny planks on the sides which you are supposed to lean back on - however every time I tried I got the overwhelming feeling we were about to capsize so I was never quite was relaxed enough to do it. Punting down the river and eating a homemade picnic was one of the best things we have done so far. It was so relaxing and peaceful and I'm very grateful to such generous people for allowing us to experience these things.

The storm that had been threatening all day, finally broke that night with loud thunder, enough to send the cat into a wild frenzy.