The Events of Thursday, June 23, 2011

                Lazy Lindsey lay, loathing laziness. The morning sun was drenching my face and the warmth was making me uncomfortably sluggish. My head hot, I finally got up, forcing myself awake with a line from a song, from the Sound of Music, “When you wake up, WAKE UP!” After taking a hot shower, I felt a little better, and I dressed for the warm summer weather of central Germany, in shorts and a T-shirt. Daddy was in the kitchen slicing up our pineapple into fat, juicy chunks. I watched him, enjoying the sucking sound coming from the fruit as it was viciously slaughtered.

                Soon, we were all sitting around our breakfast table, surrounded by the odd dog décor of this weird house, getting stringy pineapple stuck between our teeth. Daddy had graciously let us each wake up on our own, after our late night last night and so, we were getting a rather late start to our day. After flossing the strings of yellow slime from our teeth, we split up into pairs, each going off to do our own thing. Daddy and Ben walked into town (Dinkelsbühl) to purchase some groceries. Mommy and Caitlin set out for a short walk, with our new USB chip in hand, to get the latest blogs posted on our website at an internet café in our little town. And Abby and I stayed home. As we were the last ones up this morning, we had our individual quiet prayer times, read, and worked on the computer.

                The house was quiet with only the constant clicking of Abby’s fingers on the keyboard and the annoying buzzing of flies interrupting my peace. Dinkelsbühl seems to have an inordinate number of flies! I was reading about the fairytale land of Lichtenstein and the home of their billionaire prince, trying to figure out what to see there, when I heard a man’s voice shout, “Come on girls, let us in!” I recognized Daddy’s voice. Sitting, in the farthest room from the front door, we hadn’t heard them knock. I ran to the door and opened it an inch. I stuck my head by the crack and asked, “What’s the password?” Daddy replied, “I love you!” I answered, “Well, that’s not the password, but I’ll let you in any way!”

                Ben and Daddy had no success in their morning of shopping. None of the stores were open and we had no idea why. It’s Thursday, June 23! I told them that they must be closed in preparation for my birthday tomorrow! But, none of my reasons for a holiday seemed logical. Since Abby was still on the computer, Daddy called me outside and I joined the men of the family as we began the grimy work of washing and cleaning our car. Destiny is very dirty. Having traveled all over Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, North Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and now part of Germany, we were not surprised, but were still disgusted, with all the dirt that our car had accumulated.

                The black color of our car had hidden most of the dirt, but as we worked our way from front to back, there was a visible difference. Our rags were already black with filth after only a few minutes of scrubbing. Daddy had just finished vacuuming the inside of the car when Caitlin and Mommy walked up the street. They had been quite successful and were very surprised that we were almost finished washing the car. Once they heard that all the shops were closed, however, they joined in the process of cleaning the car. Many hands make light work, and soon we had finished and headed inside the house to wash up and eat lunch. After enjoying our PB&J, peach, and cucumber lunch, we gathered our sightseeing gear and hit the road. The Romantic Road took us through amazing German countryside. The waving fields of grain and green meadows spread out around us like a beautiful soft quilt.

                Our first town was Wallertein. Grabbing our cameras, we walked up to the main square. The empty square was basically a pedestrian roundabout with two roads skirting around it. In the center of the roundabout was a plague monument. A golden star decorated the top of the monument with saints decorating the rest, thanking God for saving them from The Black Plague. Bordering the roundabout were flowerboxes filled with red, orange, and purple flowers. In the street, near the roundabout was a display of flowers that made a shield with “IHS” written in the middle. Daddy recognized it as a Latin phrase that meant Jesus Christ is Savior.

                In Nördlingen, our next town, we parked near the main square. This square was a big German square. The huge church dominated the center with a flowing fountain and flowers nearby. We bought some fresh pretzels from a bakery on the square and then made our way to the TI. Here we asked what the reason was for today’s holiday. The lady didn’t speak English well enough to translate the name of the holiday, but we gathered that it was a religious holiday celebrated throughout the area. Somewhat satisfied with her answer, we took advantage of the free WCs and then headed towards the wall to start our exploration of the city.

                Like Rothenberg, Nördlingen has a medieval covered wall around the entire city and towers, every so often that connected the wall. Unlike Rothenberg, however, Nördlingen’s wall is entirely original, which is impressive. (Rothenberg’s wall was partly destroyed in WWII). As we walked, we enjoyed the half-timbered Tudor styled houses and lovely flowers decorating nearly every home. Outside of the wall, in what was the former moat, we could peek into people’s backyards (complete with cabbages and Dalmatians) and lovely green parks. We even saw a German version of a miniature golf park! The red tiled roofs of Nördlingen baked in the afternoon shade as we enjoyed the cool shade on top of the wall.

                Before we knew it, we had completed the circle and were back where we began. On the way back, we passed an extremely crowded ice cream shop. It seemed like it must have been part of the traditions attached with this odd holiday here in Germany. Mom hinted to Ben, “Hey, isn’t this the recommended ice cream shop that you were talking about?” But Ben missed the hint and we went on ice cream-less. We found our clean car and drove home, still trying to figure out what they were celebrating.

                We continued our extremely relaxing day and read, blogged, listened to music, and played Bananagrams. Daddy started up our outdoor electric grill and soon the mouthwatering smell of bratwurst drifted through our house. Mom heated our fresh pretzels in the oven and steamed some sauerkraut. Soon, we sat down to a delicious, traditional German meal in our weird doggy home. After dinner, we digested our meal and resumed our activities. Then, we headed to bed and I fell asleep on my last night as a thirteen-year-old.