Grocery Shopping.

Germans are huge fans of efficiency.

This can either be good or bad. And in the case of grocery shopping, it's definitely bad.

Before I left, I imagined grocery shopping in Germany comparable to grocery shopping in the U.S., only better. I imagined myself strolling along the aisles and dancing around in the variety of products and new things to try. Then I got here, and my vision has changed drastically.

Complication A: You have to deposit a coin for the cart. I'm never willing to do this for some reason, so I must tote around my groceries in my bags.

Complication B: You MUST bring your own bags. This isn't like the good ol' U.S. where if you forget your reusable bags then there's always the plastic bags they give you for back up. Nope. If you forget your bags, you must either buy new ones or go without. (Not that I entirely disagree with this idea, I'm all about reusable bags. It just showed me how bad I was at bringing my reusables back home.)

Complication C: After you get all your groceries, you move up to the line. This line is very deceiving because it looks a lot like the grocery stores back home, but boy, do you have another thing coming. Once you get to this point, you'd better have all your items on the belt, preferably in an orderly fashion. Heavier things to be scanned first, proceded by lighter, more fragile items.

See below.

(Do you like my sneaky iPhone images? ha!)

Exhibit A. The cashiers in Germany sit while they scan items. Rather efficient, don't you think? Efficient for them. This only puts them in optimal position to scan your items as fast as they can. Remember how I said it is better to have your items arranged on the belt? By the time all of your stuff is scanned, this won't matter.

Exhibit B. After your items are scanned, they are thrown down these rollers which sends every cucumber, box of cereal, package of mushrooms, and bottle of Coke flying down faster than the speed of light and sends them scattering asunder. Oh, did I mention that cashiers don't bag your items? So while you are gaping at the high rate of speed at which your groceries come flying towards you and are attempting to bag them, the cashier is already done and is waiting for your money.

There are several ways you can go about this. Pay the woman and while she is gathering your change, attempt to keep bagging the items. Or, you can continue bagging and pay her when you are done. If you go with the latter, you will get the "German Eye"--the look that says, "You are not being efficient!"

Another option is to throw everything back in your bags or your cart and head to another area to nicely pack your items, like this lady is doing below:

Rather complicated, don't you think?

My Summer.

So while Mark is busy slaving away with numbers at Bosch, I'm going to be living the "hard life" at the Waiblingen swimming pool.

Our downstairs neighbor loves to swim laps for exercise, so I go along with her to watch her little boy while she swims. When she's finished, I get to go swimming! Oh, the life of the unemployed, right?

Just a little note about the pictures: About two years ago, I bought a Holga. I was so excited about it because I LOVE the style of pictures that they created. So after purchasing one and developing a role of film, I decided that I could only do it if I had a full time job because it is rather expensive. I was kinda bummed to tell you the truth, because I wanted to experiment a lot with it.

Anyway, I found an app for my iPhone that takes vintage Holga-like pictures. I LOVE IT. I got it last night and I've been going crazy with it ever since. So the pictures above were taken today with my iPhone, although they look like they were taken years ago. How cool is that?

Waiblingen Altstadtfest.

This weekend was the Altstadtfest in Waiblingen. I guess a lot of cities around here have these "Old Town" festivals to celebrate the good old days of sword fighting, burning castles, and drawing and quartering people. Good times!

The beginning of the masses of people.

A drum line! We saw a couple of these.

The park in the middle of it all--which was soon filled with drinking teenagers.

We thought this was pretty random--a little lounge area in the middle of the park with what appeared to be a bunch of used, second hand couches. Haha!

Medieval vendor

Stage and vendors

There were so many people walking around dressed up in medieval clothes!

Fur coats a plenty!

Oh, did I mention the drinking?

What really was loads of fun though, was listening to all the music around the festival. In the middle of the city, there were multiple bands playing a bunch of American music. Favorites: Songs from "Grease" and "Ladies Night" by Kool and the Gang. Priceless!! Of course, the Germans thought it was great.

Over on the other side of the river where all the vendors were set up were medieval rock bands. I uploaded some videos for you to enjoy on YouTube.

First, a medieval rock band. Notice the jumping kids at the end. :)

Followed closely by another medieval band. Mark thinks the singer looks like Captain Jack Sparrow.

A drum line in the park. Gotta love the drunk dancing.

One of my favorite nights here so far.

Trip with the fam: Lucerne, Munich, and Stuttgart.

Hello my dear friends and family! Thanks for hanging with me while I post these gigantic, picture-laden posts. This is going to be the last one for my trip with my family, so here goes.

After our fantastic time in Bern, we headed to one of my favorite European cities: Lucerne. I went to Lucerne five years ago on a trip with my friends, so it was good to go back and walk the same old streets again!

After we arrived via train, one of our first stops was the Chapel Bridge.

This is the Chapel Bridge. I think it was constructed sometime around the 1400s! Inside there are dozens of murals that tell the history of the city.

Some of the murals inside the bridge.

Mark and Christina staring in amazement at the bridge!

Mom and Dad by the bridge

There are a lot of swans, and this guy was trying to lure them over by acting like he had food in his had. One swan got brave and swam up pretty close to him, then soon discovered that it was all a joke. The swan looked pretty disgusted that he didn't have anything, and swam away. The guy almost fell in the water, too. Oh, what a disaster!

I love all the swans that swim around in Lucerne.

Lake Lucerne

When we arrived in Lucerne, the weather was great. Then it started to slowly get cloudy and cold, so we decided to go on a boat ride to see the surrounding cities and all of Lake Lucerne. I love going on these boat rides, and it's especially nice when it's cold outside, because you can sit inside and just view the scenery from there.

Us outside when the boat ride started...seeing if we can handle the cool weather!

Just enjoying the scenery!

Hotel (?) being built on the lake

I didn't take many pictures of the boat ride, so those are the only ones that I have. When we got off, it was starting to rain and getting late so we just headed back to our hotel for the night.

Alpenhorns by the train station!

The next morning, we got up and headed towards the Lion Monument.

This commemorates the Swiss Guards who were killed in the French Revolution.

After that, we walked around and shopped for a little bit, then went to lunch at the Stadtkeller. This is my second time at that place and I loved it! You get to sit eating traditional Swiss food while the performers play traditional Swiss instruments and sing songs. It's great.

I recorded more videos instead of pictures and since Blogger doesn't like my videos, I'll skip them for now. Perhaps later I'll try uploading them though. :)

It was cold and rainy the rest of the day, so we went walking around and shopping trying to avoid getting wet. Mark got a haircut because he said his hair was getting out of control and he couldn't take it anymore. Later that day, we went to the other side of the city to explore the towers that are built on the original city wall. We got up to one of the towers that is open to the public just in time to see it closed a few minutes before we arrived. It was sad, but we still got a great view of the city from being on top of the hill.

Another view of Chapel Bridge

Looking towards the towers and the old city wall

Yet another old bridge. This one has murals on the inside like Chapel Bridge does. And the red tower had a statue of Mother Mary on the inside.

You can see the towers! Typical--one is being renovated. It seems like whenever you see a famous monument in Europe, it's usually surrounded by scaffolding.

Crazy fountain!

Big man by a little door!

After we looked at the towers, we walked around the city more and it started raining, so we headed back to our hotel.

We got up bright and early the next morning to go to Munich. It was raining again so that was a real bummer, but I was excited to see another German city.

This is a church located on the Odeonsplatz, near the English Gardens.

Walking around in the English Gardens

This is the Feldherrnhalle, a monument designed to honor Bayern's generals. Interesting fact: In 1923, Hitler clashed with the police here, which landed him in prison where he wrote Mein Kampf. It's weird to think of being in the same places where Hitler once was.

The statue on top of the stairs at the Feldherrnhalle.

Looking back towards the square

The Rathaus

The next day, we decided to go see Dachau, the concentration camp that is close to Munich. Thankfully, the weather was really nice so we were able to see it on a sunny day.

This is the main platform and train tracks where the prisoners were first brought and unloaded.

When you enter the camp, you enter through the same doors as the prisoners did. These doors say "Work makes you free."

After you walk in the gates, immediately to your left are the prisoner's barracks.

The entrance gates to the camp

"May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933-1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men."

A map in the museum of all the concentration camps.

The building where the prisoners were sorted, cleaned, and tortured is now the museum. Recent cleaning unveiled the words on the walls "Smoking is forbidden."

There are tables filled with personal items taken from the prisoners, such as letters and pictures.

The uniform that every prisoner had to wear.

The man in the picture in the middle of this plaque nearly brought me to tears. There's so much anguish and heartache on his face that it was hard to see.

Memorial out in front of the museum: "Never again"

This memorial was designed by a concentration camp survivor. It symbolizes many things; one being that prisoners used to jump into the electrocuted fence to commit suicide.

This memorial is for all the different types of prisoners the camp contained. Contrary to what I always thought, there wasn't just Jews at these concentration camp. Every type of prisoner got labeled when he came to the camp. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses got a purple triangle and homosexuals got a pink triangle. There were also political prisoners.

Inside one of the barracks. I believe these bunks were reconstructed and not the originals.

Every mound of gravel was once where a barrack once stood. There were 32 total.

Toilets in the barracks.

The number of prisoners in the barracks.

Looking back towards the barracks with the fence and watchtower.

Some people might wonder why someone would choose to go to such a potentially depressing place like a concentration camp, but I think it is something that everyone needs to see. When you are there, it is so hard to fathom the pain and torment the prisoners went through.

One thing I regret is not brushing up on my WWII history before I went. There is so much information at Dachau and it's hard not to spend all day there. So if I had to do it again, I would brush up on my history so I had a little more of an idea what all the plaques were referring to.

Now on to some lighter stuff!

After we left Dachau, we spend the rest of the day hanging out in Munich and enjoying the food. We went back to the Marienplatz by the Rathaus and I was happy to get a much brighter, sunnier picture of the place. :)

Later that day, we went to the train station to catch our train back to Stuttgart. We ran into four missionaries, which was fun. Whenever we go places over here, Mark always says, "Where are the missionaries?" So we finally found some.

The next day we went into Stuttgart to look at the sights.

We found a GIGANTIC flea market that they hold every weekend in Stuttgart. I think I know what I'm going to be doing from now on!

After that, we caught the train out to Esslingen (a town close to Stuttgart) to spend some time. It's a very pretty village and worth some time if you ever come to the area.

Can you see the church covered in scaffolding? (See, I told you!)

The Rathaus

Man, I really love how Germans aren't afraid of color.

The next day was Sunday so we all went to the ward here in Waiblingen. It was great, I love my ward! Later that day we made dinner and sat around and chatted. Great family time.

On Monday, my parents and my sister flew out. It was hard saying goodbye all over again, but it was so much fun having them here and I'll never forget the places we went to see!

Thanks, family, for such a great time!