Germany: The final installment:  (Ooooo.. just like Star Wars!)

Our last full day was Friday and our friends took us to a wine region along the Rhine about 40 minutes away.  We visited a couple of cute little towns and a lookout over the river where a huge statue called Niederwalddenkmal - try saying that 3 times fast! (It is "Germania" the female representative of Germany)  was erected after a war between France and Germany in the late 1800's.  She looks like a very butch Statue of Liberty.  It is pretty impressive.  On the way home we stopped for a late lunch and a look at a monastery where parts of the film "Name of the Rose" were filmed.  The monks produce wine and beer which of course we partook of in their restaurant.  That evening was Halloween, a holiday that has only recently been celebrated in Germany, brought to the country by Americans.  They certainly don't take it as seriously as we do but the little kids were excited and B took them to the US base to Trick-or-Treat.  Non-Americans are permitted onto the residential part of the base but not inside the houses (?), so the families there had set up tables and spooky displays on their lawns so the German kids could participate.  They came home with bags full of crap and we all sat outside around a fire and drank mulled wine.  All of B &P's friends speak English, and well.  Even the children could converse with me. The US really has to get on top of this language thing.  We are seriously being left behind.

View over the Rhine.

Germania

Monastery

Water trough for dogs.  Says "Hund" with a "P" for parking and a place to tie them up!

All in all it was a nice trip, especially seeing my Germans again.  But to be honest I'd rather travel somewhere warmer and sunnier and maybe a little more exotic.  Germany really doesn't feel very foreign.  In that modern, busy, wealthy part of the country there are so many similarities with The States.  We went into a pharmacy one day and I could swear I was in Walgreens!  xxoo me