The Professor and Mary Ann

Our Itinerary: Stuttgart to Atlanta and Atlanta to Salt Lake. It was a good schedule, flying out at 11:00am and getting in at 9:00pm on the same day (flying back across 8 time zones too, so about 23 hours of travel door to door). German taxi driver: A+. cheerful, knowledgeable, efficient and with candy for the kids Stuttgart airport: C-. inefficient, poorly-designed, and not very helpful; had to show our passports 5 times in 5 different places. took 1 1/2 hours to process us from curb to gate. ugh. Delta: B-. The flight attendants all looked "rid hard & put away wet" and the bare bones service just can't keep up with their [government subsidized] European counterparts with their dewy-skinned attendants, steaming towels, toys for the kids, and gourmet meals instead of astronaut food served in foil pouches. They got us there and did it on time, but it feels more and more like riding on a bus with a lot of rules. German Family With Four Kids Who Sat Next To Us On The

On our last day in Tübingen, we decided to go on a stocherkahn up the Neckar. The seats are made by these three boards -- one across and two on the sides. Just what the professor needed. University students hanging out Maddie tried out the stocherkahn So did Sebastian, but it's a pretty high stakes game with the river so full of boats. Joss wanted to stick his fingers in the water and "make bubbles". Our great guide Felix. He gave us the wine, women, and Hölderlin tour of Tübingen. Goodbye Tübingen!

The kids went back to their day camp on Monday and Rob, Joss and I headed up to Schwäbisch Hall for another meeting with an internship provider. My mom has liked doors since she first came to Europe, and we've followed her lead and taken a lot of pictures of doors. I think this one is the Door With The Mostest 2011. This is where Rob stayed when he came in 2005. He said you could drop a ball at one end of the room and it would roll to the other, it was so off kilter. As I recall, I had three kids in Vienna while he was away visiting his interns. I bought myself a great pair of shoes as payment. This is where they have summer performances. Rob got to see one while he was here in 2005, but I am just imagining actors falling down the stairs in mid-dance. Original Bratz dolls? Who knew? I have heard that when Rob's mother came to pick him up, she had only one german word under her belt: niedlich , which means cute. She could have gotten pretty far here on niedlich . It was all ni

We got up in our quaint hotel and came downstairs to perhaps the most sensational breakfast we've ever had, and that is saying something. But we've never had a candlelit breakfast before, or one with personal jars of fruit salad and bottles of juice. Rob and I had looked at the menu at the Weisser Bock, but the fixed price menu was waaaaay above our budget. Too bad, because it was all Spanish-German, and we are Spanish-German foodies if ever there were some. So at least we got the swank breakfast offerings. The kids enjoyed it, but they probably would have picked Krispy Kremes or Count Chocula over the cold cuts and croissants and muesli if given the choice. We went to church at the LDS ward and had a good time. We came back with all of the students to this restaurant Rob had picked out the day before called Perkeo on the Haupstrasse: Perkeo was a jester with a legendary drinking ability. We had our own room and we got to order our own thing (usually for budgeting and serving