Greetings from Rothenburg!

Hi folks! After a loooong flight with a baby and a very talkative Marine, we arrived in Stuttgart and were finally able to meet Jenny and Felix! They were such gracious hosts. We toured the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart (Jenny's first time, even though she works for Mercedes!), and then had a wonderful albeit FREEZING evening at the Weihnachtsmarkt in Esslingen. The Christmas market was exactly what I thought it would be, with an added bonus of a medieval theme. We sampled Glühwein (hot red wine) and Schöpfnüdeln (potato pasta with cheese and sauerkraut--Schwäbish-traditionale). We ended the evening with Felix's homemade French pizza. (Mom, you would have loved it!) We cannot thank them enough for allowing us to visit, and we are so thankful to have met family here!

We got an amazing 12 hours of sleep last night and are ready to tackle Rothenburg.

(Not my picture. I borrowed it from the internet...however, this is pretty much what it looks like right now!)

We have figured out the trains and had no mishaps on the way here. Did I mention there was snow? We stepped off the train in Rothenburg and were greeted with what would qualify as a blizzard in my "live in the South and never see snow" world. It is beautiful. Rothenburg is the oldest walled city in Germany, and we can't wait to walk along the wall tomorrow morning. For now, we are off to St. Jakob's church to hear an organ concert, then dinner and the Nightwatchman's tour of the city. I already have my eye on the cuckoo clocks!!!

Love to all. Alles Liebe.

First official trip blog!!!

I know, I know, you all (all 7 of you!) have been waiting with bated breath to read our first official trip blog! Hi to the new folks who may or may not be following along on our journey. I would give Oma and Petra a German greeting, but seeing as how Lauren spricht kein Deutsch and Charlie is at work, that will have to wait. (And if you are wondering how some German spontaneously appeared, its cause I copied it off the card Charlie put in my wallet in case he loses me. As if I, with the superior sense of direction, could get lost. How sweet.)

The weather is rainy in Atlanta, and they have already announced that Hartsfield is "experiencing some delays." In addition, our flight is "oversold" and they are looking for "volunteers who would receive compensation in exchange for their seats." You could not offer me enough money in the world to give up my seat on this plane, so they better look elsewhere. Hopefully this is not a foreshadowing of a dreary day!

Our bags are all packed, and I am extremely proud of myself. Caroline told me no less than 18 times to PACK LIGHTLY, LAUREN!!! For those of you that know me, and my mother, those two words simply do not exist in my vocabulary. But I was determined to turn over a new leaf. Lo and behold, I am all packed with room to spare! I firmly adhered to Rick Steve's packing list, and even resisted Charlie's adament request that I take a sleeping bag "because I had the space." But I stood firm and resisted the evils of overpacking, and I think both my feet and my back with thank me later.


I did remember our essential paperwork....


And necessary goodies for the plane. I simply cannot go to Germany without Gummi Bears!


Finally, I took Rick Steve's advice and tore apart his travel guide to make our own little mini personalized guides to the areas we will be visiting...


To all of our family and friends, we love you dearly and will miss being with you at Christmas. Thank you for sharing in our journey! We are excited to be exploring our great world, but we know there's no place like home. Love.

The 12 Days of Christmas

I love the 12 days of Christmas. I always get confused about when it starts, though. Do you start on December 13th at day 1 or day 12? That's completely besides the point for this post. Those who know me also know that I LOVE a good musical, dancing, and Glee. So when I came across this video the other day, I about died! I must confess, I almost have the whole thing memorized. Apparently this is what happens when a bunch of show kids get bored...if only I could dance like that! And those splits!!! Wowza! Enjoy!

The excitement is growing!

Charlie and I are getting so excited as we prepare for our trip in just 13 days! I survived my first semester of classes in PT school and am gearing up for five days of finals. It's amazing how high B's move from being "close to an A" to " a long way from a C!" B's mean degrees, baby! I have learned how to be in control and not let stress overwhelm me. It's a liberating feeling. After leaving Idlewood, I realized how "dead" I had become. There is not amount of money worth being miserable, and now I also see how there's no grade worth stressing over (unless it's a C, but we're not going there. Then I'd have to get into all the complicated PT GPA calculations and...well, nevermind).

I'm feeling especially in the Christmas spirit this morning, as I'm blogging from bed by the early pseudo-sunlight and the twinkle of the lights on the Christmas tree in our bedroom. Whew...I admitted it! Yes, there is a Christmas tree in the bedroom. And two in the living room. Dinah says the house looks like a "winter wonderland." I'll take it.

Back to the Christmas spirit...webcams are amazing. I look everyday at the webcam for Neuschwanstein castle to see the snow status. Because, let's be honest, if it doesn't snow while I'm in Germany I'll be pretty disappointed. And today...snow! I decided to start webcam trolling and see what else I could find. I've found webcams for most of the places that we know we are visiting. Check these out, and make sure to find the HUGE Christmas trees!

Neuschwantstein Castle

Marienplatz in Munich

Town Square in Rothenberg ob er Tauber

Waterfall in Triberg

Fussen

The only difficult thing about viewing webcams in Germany is the time difference. There is a very small window to actually see the sights in daylight because they are 6 hours ahead of us, and the sun sets around, oh, you know, 4:30 p.m.! I try to sneak a peek before I leave for school, because, as it is currently 8:27 a.m. here, the sun is already starting to set in Rothenberg. Happy viewing!

An open letter...

Normally, I wouldn't get so worked up about this, but I am. Here goes...

Dear Tiger,

I've been a Tiger-Tailer from the very beginning. I followed you through your first victories. I've cut articles and pictures out of newspapers and magazines. I pinned the picture of you looking over the hill at your putt with your hands cupped around your eyes and the title "The Eyes Have It" on my door. I've admired every single Sunday red you've worn over the years. I was sad for you when your daddy died. I cheered for you when you sank the final putt to win your first Master's. I got your autograph when you could still meet your fans after the tournaments (I confess that I later sold said autograph, but it was for a good cause). I followed you when, quite frankly, you sucked for a little while and didn't win. And then you were married and had cute little Tigers and you had to get a new caddy when Fluff just couldn't cut it.

See, Tiger? Your fans have invested a lot in you. We made you famous, because, honestly, who admires golfers? And, I'm a GIRL! C'mon! I love coming home from church and watching the Sunday rounds with daddy. I walked all over Augusta National just to catch a glimpse. I mean, you're good, but we really like you because you aren't flashy and arrogant. Not like Greg Norman. Ew.

So, Tiger, let's be clear. If all these infidelity rumors are true, you will be filed in the Athletes I No Longer Respect folder. You'll find company among Pete Rose, Michael Jordan and Barry Bonds (his folder is full of fiery flames and gnashing teeth). Oh, and Greg, because he refuses to sign autographs and breaks clubs when he is mad.

Say it ain't so.

Sincerely,
Lauren

Thanks...

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I will post pics later, but we are giving thanks at the beach this year. We have 14 people in the house, and we're letting go of all traditions. No turkey this year...it's a low country boil instead! Also, since Charlie and I will be in Germany for Christmas, I decided to make some of our family's favorite Christmas desserts. And no one will be participating in Black Friday festivities, seeing as we are about 100 miles from the nearest mall. :-)

I am reminded of a song we used to sing back in the overhead days of the church youth group. The chorus started out, "Count your blessings, name them one by one." What a great reminder to put a name on each blessing. It makes me realize how much I truly have to be thankful for. Name your blessings today, and bask in the goodness of our God.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

P.S. We can now officially begin the Christmas countdown...29 days!!!

Sweet Memories

It's funny how simple tasks can trigger such wonderful memories. I'm in charge of all the baking for Thanksgiving this year. I have a long list of favorite desserts and new recipes that I am slowly checking off. As I stood in the kitchen making Derby pies, I thought of Papaw. I was breaking pecans into little pieces to go into the pie, and I remembered sitting at their glass kitchen table. Papaw is showing me how to break the pecans...first longways, then into little pieces. I also think of him whenever I cook country ham. Or hang a spoon from my nose.





And always at Christmas, when we read the Christmas story. He would settle into his chair, slide on his glasses, and open his well worn and loved Bible to Luke. We would all sit around in anticipation, listening about the angels, the journey, and the birth of our Savior. Sweet Papaw. Sweet memories.

On not studying

I am not a cheater. Not in the littlest sense. I play by the rules, and I mean, every one of them. (Ask Adam...I have the Settlers of Catan rulebook memorized.)

However, I'm not above a little copy and paste action, especially when it is relevant and I don't have time to conjure up the necessary cleverness to write a blog.

Hence, this evening's blog. If you haven't noticed (and by you, I mean the 7 wonderful peeps who follow my blog), I've been MIA recently. Most notably, it's due to the fact that I have 5 weeks of school left and 18 million things to do. No exaggeration, because I don't do that either. :-)

I'm in the process of studying for a huge anatomy test on Friday, and I went searching for a diagram of the brachial plexus. If you don't know what that is, don't worry. It's unimportant to the story here. What is important is that I found a wonderfully clever and well-written blog about studying anatomy. In fact, those exact words could have come right out of my own mouth. But they didn't. Some guy wrote a post a year ago and beat me to it. Enter copy and paste. I won't take credit for his words, but I will kinda pretend like they're my own. Cause after all, it's what I'm thinking anyways. So, CGHM, whoever you are, I give you full credit for the following words. Thanks for expressing my thoughts so I don't have to.

"Few ethical dilemmas are patently resolved. One such moral conundrum is the following: would it be unethical if, during an anatomy exam, you felt around your own body to determine the location of bony structures and muscle insertions? Taking this a step further, what if you incised your own skin to view the underlying muscles, vasculature, and nerves?

Granted, this would be a drastic action, and one that would more immediately conjure up the question of where to send someone who would do such a thing (the "crazy house" would probably be agreed upon). But one would have to feel some sort of emotion - not "respect," but something else - for the purported "cheater," even if just an acknowledgment of his ballsiness.

The body is a cheat sheet no man can take away. In my estimation, the man who would slice himself for this should be institutionalized, but not before he is given an honorary doctorate for doing all he can to further the pursuit of knowledge, even at his own expense.

It's just a grade, people...not worth losing blood over. Don't get any ideas."

Oh, and in case you are wondering, here's the brachial plexus.

Ode to MARTA

So, today we were hurrying down the escalator to catch the MARTA train, and I see a bunch of textbooks strewn all over the platform. I think to myself, "Self, who would strew their textbooks all over the platform?" Any guesses? Well, I found out pretty quickly. Clearly, I'm not thinking about anything except getting on the train that's flashing DORAVILLE in bright yellow letters because I don't want to wait at the 5 points station any longer than I have to. In my hurry to get to the train, I almost get punched in the face but they guy who's textbooks are strewn all over the platform. Someone insulted his girl, or his momma, or his hair, and he throws a punch RIGHT AS WE ARE WALKING BETWEEN THEM. Thank goodness I have catlike reflexes. I almost pulled out my pink pepper spray to give him a piece of my mind, but I got on the train instead (see previous statement about hanging out at 5 Points). The end.

Breakable

Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
So it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
And to stop the muscle that makes us confess

And we are so fragile
And our cracking bones make noise
And we are just breakable
Breakable, breakable girls and boys

This song by Ingrid Michaelson is hauntingly beautiful. As I listened to the lyrics a few moments ago, I thought about what it meant to be fragile. It could mean that you are weak, or incapable, or vulnerable. All of those have such negative connotations. We are fragile, but I think that fragility allows us to be vulnerable in a good way, vulnerable to love. Think of all the references to a hardened heart. What type of image does that incur? To me, a hardened heart is one that cannot break. A heart that cannot break cannot truly love. To truly love, you must be vulnerable. You must open yourself to another. Love makes us hurt. Love makes us grieve. Love helps put us back together. If we can never be broken, we can never experience the goodness of the mending, for "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." And for that, I will hold my fragile heart in outstretched arms to love.