"Bavaria" is German for "Happy Thanksgiving!"

So there was a WHOLE LOT of November just spent in the physical therapy clinic, but for Thanksgiving  there would be no sittin' around at home. Nope, we went to Garmisch.....or at least close. 6+ hours in the car! But everyone behaved well, and to follow our delicious Thanksgiving lunch of turkey sandwiches, sweet potato puffs, craisins, pecans, punch and oatmeal cream pies, we were treated (thanks, Jed!) to a lovely Thanksgiving Feast of all the traditional fair: bratwurst, jagerschnitzel, spaetzle, truthahn, and pommes frites. Paula, I found your cup!

We arrived in Oberau (the town we actually stayed in, about 15 minutes from Garmisch) after dark, so it wasn't until morning that we realized we were camped right at the base of the Alps! (No, we didn't actually camp.) But even still, I didn't get a good view of the mountains until I jogged out of the fog of the town and continued my run along the most clear creek I've EVER seen. Sorry, my camera died before I could get a picture of the water or the cairn I built on the beach. But here are some mountains.

Later on we went to Füssen

It's real pretty, sittin' up on that rock

 Aaron in the courtyard.                                                  I think this is the horses' room.

Dallin and the castle as we trekked up to the bridge over the Multnomah Falls-esque waterfall, that affords a great view....

...WHICH IS THIS!

The next day was MORE HIKING!! If you're from Oregon, or even if you're not but you've been to Oneonta Gorge, imagine if someone carved a trail in the wall of the canyon so you didn't have to wade in the water (....wade in the water, children...). Well, that's what they've done with Partnachklamm. It's over a kilometer of hand-carved trail, sometimes covered, sometimes not, and a few meters below is the torrent of crystal clear, bright blue, ice cold, fire hose-pressure ("You're a lucky little boy. You get to drink from the FIRE HOSE!") water. I think that's the coldest I've ever been. No, I didn't fall in, but that's the sort of hike I'd probably like better in the summer. Although, when it's snowy, they do hikes by torchlight. :) So, eventually you come to the end of the super narrow channel and the basin widens and you can keep hiking or  turn back....we did both because Miles and Aaron were suddenly GONE. So, I ran all the way back to the beginning, probably terrifying people as I went, and found them out by the entrance, playing down by the creek......I wasn't so cold anymore! So here are some pictures:

Gives you a good view of the gorge.

Gives you a good view of me and Sarah.....what I would look like with long hair, in case you met me after October 2010.

Gives you a good view of Aaron and Miles in the place they were caught (taken before they were caught).

Gives you a good view of how they felt after they got caught. 

We spent the rest of the evening either swimming or strolling down the Christmas marketie streets of Garmisch, admiring horribly expensive dirndls and generally basking in the glow of Weihnachtmarkt that can't be equaled in any other language. Also, I tried on a dirndl earlier that day but they were adamant that we not take pictures...sorry.....and I bought some Birkenstocks:).

Just one more thing to discuss. Dachau. The first concentration camp, it's about 10 km outside of Munich (oh, I forgot to say we went to Munich and listened to the glockenspiel and watched the figures dance in the Rathaus clock tower at Marienplatz. There, now you know. Also, we took a fun picture....

......)..back to Dachau. This was part of the trip I was really looking forward to, so I'm really glad we got to do it, and shout out to Jed for keeping the younger kids out by the car while Sarah, Dallin, Rachel and I wandered through the compound and sort of glossed over the immense amount of information about the lives of the prisoners at this camp. This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I am so grateful to have experiences like this, even though they can be awfully chilling, to see and remember what horrible things have been overcome in our not too distant past. This was not quite the same as visiting a Holocaust museum - I mean, there are plenty of posters, pictures, and artifacts - but walking through the building that was built by prisoners, seeing the fading German painted on the walls, running my fingers along the cold, rough wall as I passed windows, looking out on the huge gravel yard. As you walk through the gate below.........

 .....you read, "Arbeit macht frei," ("Work will make you free") written in iron bars. The German tour guide we were listening to said something involving "ridiculous" and "lie." Yyyyyeah. This was a work camp initially. But an awful lot of people died here.

 This is the yard and main building that the prisoners actually constructed. That weird mess of metal in front is a sculpture - a heap of gaunt corpses, a memorial to the victims. There is also a model of the barracks still standing. So that's what's going on there visually. I don't think I could ever really understand what it felt like to those interned here to walk around these grounds. But now, this is a place that speaks out against oppression and hate and, just like the sun peaking out of the clouds in the picture, carries a hope that the people who visit will go forth from this place with a firmer resolve to bring about peace and understanding in the world. I'm really glad we were able to go be a part of that.

So.....it was a great Thanksgiving! I'm thankful that I've been here, having this great experience and that I've been so well cared for all the while. Once in a lifetime stuff!

We're lookin' Gothic.

You're probably thinking that I've been out having too much fun to write about it. Sure......Actually what happens is I go out, have fun, come home and scramble to get ready for "work" the next day. This job shadow is basically a full-time job, and I've been having a great time......It just means blogging falls by the wayside.

So....we went to Köln (Cologne)...like a month ago. And even though I won't forget because I bought
the coolest pants on earth there. It's actually the first big city I've been to in Deutschland, so I was delighted 
to be there. And here's what it looked like:

Cute cute girls walking through Laurenzplatz

Kölner Dom. Big.

And this is what my pants look like:

It's like a sweater on my legs.

Boring excuses

I'm working on it! I've really had so many things to do. . . . . This is where you say, "Oh what could you have possibly had to do?" And I say, I'm slaying dragons, alright?!

Okay, not really, but I did have a very hectic week finally submitting about a 100 pages worth of application material to the Army-Baylor DPT program....so start your praying if you haven't already. And never fear, I'll write about Cologne and Munich and the Alps and stuff like that soon enough.