Bamberg, Rothenburg, & New Years!

Happy New Year!! I cannot believe it's already 2008! Well, on Friday night a bunch of us just hung out here at the hotel and then on Saturday Jana and I headed to Bamberg. Bamberg is a city a couple hours away by train, and there we met up with Jana's German friend who is from Bamberg. Sylvia was amazing and gave us a full tour of the city, showed us all the good shops including a gummy bear store. We hiked up to two cathedrals, and one of them had a wedding going on which was exciting to see! We saw an amazing view of the city from the area outside the church. We spent a lot of time walking around, stopping in shops, and then Sylvia took us out for a very nice dinner and then to a neat German pub for some drinks. She also took us to her parent's home...this was very interesting because Sylvia's two sisters and brother all have their houses built right next to their parents', so all the houses are members of her family. We got to meet the family...her parents didn't speak any English, but the others did. Sylvia speaks perfect English and German since she lived in Texas for 3 years. It was so nice to have a native host to drive us around and tell us all about the city she grew up in! She is also planning to move to Des Moines in maybe a year so her daughter can attend American school, and she loves Iowa. On Sunday, Jana and I headed to a neat little city called Rothenburg Ob Tauber...which has no new buildings or stores. The city is surrounded by the original city wall, and you can actually walk around the city up on top of the wall, it was amazing! The views were great, and the little city (which was more like a village) was full of cute guesthouses and old shops and pubs. It's a little touristy, but we still enjoyed it. All the streets are cobblestone and there are horse-drawn carriages to take people around. I took some videos so you'll have those to look at later =) On the train back to Vilseck I was excited to find it was full of Spaniards! I talked to a group from Sevilla and a couple from Madrid on the way back in Spanish, pretty exciting when all you've been hearing is German and English!! Interestingly, there were a lot of Asian and Spanish tourists in Rothenburg. Yesterday (New Years Eve) we had to work, but we got off at 5. Afterwards a girl I work with named Kelly was very generous and drove me to Grafenwoer to take me to the PX and Commissary (the military version of Target and Hy-Vee). We don't have access to these ourselves, so it was very nice of her to take me, and I am so happy to have American food in the fridge!! The prices are equivalent or a little cheaper than in the U.S. and you pay in U.S. dollars so it's better than the German grocery stores. Kelly is a 24-year-old who's husband is in Iraq, and when we were driving back to Vilseck her husband called from Iraq! She was telling me a lot about the military lifestyle...fascinating! After that, our friend Sue drove Jana, Danielle, and I to Grafenwoer to meet up with our other friends. We all went out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and then headed to the bars and a dance club called Ed's. It was so much fun! At midnight, everyone in the bar went outside for a crazy fireworks display right over our heads! Germans are huge into fireworks for New Years! Then we headed back into the club where the bartenders were collecting all the ashtrays, since a law passed starting Jan. 01 that bans smoking in bars here, so at 12:00 it went into effect. We stayed there until maybe 2, and then Sue was very generous to drive us back to Vilseck. We all had today off, so we all just slept in and pretty much spent all of today in bed watching movies and relaxing =) Tomorrow is back to work for another busy week! I hope you all had a great New Years! Miss you lots!
Love, Kelly