We've been here a little over a week, since I am writing this at almost 8pm on Sunday night and we arrived at 8:00am last Sunday morning.
We slept in today and had a leisurely breakfast. After we cleaned up, we decided to take a drive to the city of Ulm where there is a University. We thought that all stores were closed on Sunday, which is REALLY nice and allows for much needed family time, but as Americans we are used to being able to run errands and go grocery shopping on Sundays. This means we must plan our weeknights and weekends a little better. Ulm is about an hour or so away from Filderstadt via the Autobahn. It is in the mountains.
Of course, my husband was in his glory being able to drive without a speed limit. But he refrained from going any faster than 87 mph (about 140km per hour). It made me nervous, of course, but I'm used to him being a maverick behind the wheel.
He was in the center lane and cars were passing him as if we were standing still! He didn't try to go any faster because he knew it was bothering me. There were some areas where the speed limit was restricted, mostly where there's a town nearby or if there is road construction. The "GPS lady" lets him know when he's going over the speed limit. She says "Beware" so I don't have to say a word! What I found interesting is that even those wonderfully fast Porsches slowed down to the speed limit when there was a restriction! The Germans actually do abide by speed limits when they are put to the test.
When we finally reached Ulm, it was drizzling and cold. I was going to take my lightweight jacket but I'm glad my husband convinced me to wear the heavy one and take my gloves and scarf because I needed them. I'm still not acclimated to the cold yet. And since we are in the "hills" or mountains, it's even colder! UGH! Thank goodness we didn't get here sooner then March! God was certainly looking after us!
I was very disappointed, to say the least, that the University of Ulm was not what I had imagined it would be. I imagined wonderful old buildings with gorgeous architecture but no, there were no old buildings to be found. Many of them looked like they were built in the 50's or 60's (cold war style) and most were sleek and modern. We found that Daimler, Nokia, and Siemens all have R&D centers on campus. I've taken some photos of the different buildings. They are colorful, to say the least. What is fun, though, is that the dorms' architects connected the colored buildings with enclosed bridges so that students could go from dorm to dorm without having to go outside. I would imagine that being in the "hills" is bitter, bitter cold in the winter time not to mention all of the snow. By the way, there were still many patches of snow in those hills. We saw them as we were driving there.
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We decided to go exploring a little in the town. We saw a beautiful church and tried to find our way to it but failed. In the end, we found another church. It was s Protestant church called "Martin Luther Kirche (Church)". It was built in 1907. It was not nearly as old as the church we visited yesterday but it was quite beautiful. I was disappointed and disheartened to see that the windows of the church at ground level were barred and that they had a steel fence across the front of the church, probably because the beautiful wood door and/or stone areas had been defaced. It's a sad commentary on our society when people do not show the proper amount of respect for old and beautiful buildings. Whether one believes in a particular church's theology, one should always show respect for the people who built the church by admiring it and not destroying it.
Speaking of a lack of respect, across the street was a beautiful old stone gazebo. It was probably built before the church because of the intricate stone carvings. Since it was a busy road, I tried to get a good picture but I'm not sure I accomplished that with this photo, but believe me the graffiti is there and it's very, very sad.
On the way back to our apartment we decided to continue exploring and too some side roads in and around Filderstadt. To our amazement, there's a discount store somewhat like our Sam's or Costco. I was also amazed that there were cars parked in the parking lot. I thought the cars were for the people watching the planes take off and land (I didn't know we lived as close to the airport as we do.) At any rate, the store had just closed (6 pm). But we agreed that this store was somewhere we needed to check out, if only for future reference.
When we got home, I was diligently working on my blog when my husband came upstairs (I had left him in the car...which was a mistake...)and told me he took the top down (the EOS is a hard-top convertible)and couldn't get the top back up again. To say, I was annoyed was an understatement! I continued writing but he convinced me I needed to help him because the owner's manual was written in German...of course!! So I looked online for English owners manuals and could only find the ones that cost money and I was NOT about to spend money for an owners manual for a rental car! At this point, I decided to try to translate the German Manual into English with a FREE online translation application. If you've ever translated ANY language, you'll know how incredibly tedious this can be; one wrong spelling, a missed special letter (the German language has several - a letter that looks like an italicized capital B - which is pronounced like a double "s" - and vowels that have double dots over the top of them) and you have to back to see where the error was. To do these translations was very painful, indeed. In the end, I decided to see if my terrible translations could help us bring the top up. Ted took the German manual downstairs to see if our landlords could help with the translation while I went outside to fiddle with the car.
Wonder of wonders! I was able to get the top up. Apparently Ted was pushing the lever that is supposed to bring the top up instead of pulling it. I was thankful that we were able to get the roof up and told my husband to not play with it anymore. Of course, he didn't listen to me. :) He said he wanted to be sure he knew how it worked.
These past two days have pretty much exhausted me so I'm heading to bed.
Guten Tag!
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