Castles, Museums, & other cool German architecture like Fachwerk

The trip to NeuSchwanstein Castle was well worth the view, even if as I was told, "That's not a real castle -- it's only decorative."

Our trip to Munich and the Odenwald area over Christmas was really great.  It was a bit odd spending Christmas in a hotel, but hey, it was better than a stable!  Our tradition is to go to church and have a special meal on Christmas Eve and we were able to that in Munich.  We went to a Krippenspiel (Nativity Play) in a downtown church which was mainly for quite young children.  It suited our level of German perfectly!  I particularly liked the real sheepskin costume for the kids acting the sheep and the fact that the shepherds and Joseph wear broad brimmed round hats instead of dish towels or armrest covers as my sister Dorothy reminded me that we had used.  Afterwards we planned to find a nice restaurant for the evening meal.  Apparently the nice Christmas Eve dinner is eaten at midday not evening, and most of what was open were Döner stands (similar to Gyros).  Pablo insisted that we were going to sit down to eat, even if it was only McDonald's.  Vicente & Miguel were quite happy about going to McDonald's, but even that was closed!  Fortunately we finally found a restaurant that was open and had a fine German meal for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day in Munich was the warmest on record in all of Germany - around 68 and beautiful!

We went to some museums as well.

Pharmacy museum with floating crocodile

Robotic library microfiche retriever

Outside a toy museum

 
After Christmas we descended for a few days upon an old friend of mine who lives close to Mannheim in what I believe is the Odenwald area.  In any case it is a rural, hilly area with castles everywhere you look.  Having grown up fascinated with all things to do with knights, castles, King Arthur, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Seeing Vicente & Miguel chattering away in German with my friend's daughter was also quite fun.  I might still have the edge on them when it comes to vocabulary, but there's no doubt that they can interact in regular daily conversation more comfortably than I can at this point.  More than anything though, it was really good to reconnect with an old friend and meet each other's families. They drove us all over, fed us good German food and Miguel's new favorite:  raclette, took us to church and in general showed us an aspect of Germany that we would never have been able to experience otherwise.

Giant (55,000 gallon) wine barrel in Heidelberg Castle.  If the castle was under siege, at least the inhabitantsy would be able to drown their sorrows.

This style of wood & plaster is known as Fachwerk.