Sunny Day

Finally the sun has come out.  60-70 and sunny which feels awesome.  We've had a good weekend so far.  Yesterday Elise went to an amusement park (Geiselwind) with 3 other girls and rode on her first roller coaster.  Sounds like they had a blast.  While she was off having fun, we drove over to a nearby town, Weiden (about the size of St. Cloud) to look at a mattress.  From what I had read in one of our books, Weiden is a perfectly preserved medieval town and the person who we were buying the mattress from was living right in the center of it.  The guy we bought it from said you have to park outside the wall because unless you have a permit you aren't allowed to drive in the "old city".  We parked at a bus station across from the new Rathaus (City Hall) and then he guided us in via a few phone calls.  We walked across a street into a park and then along the wall until a bridge led to an entrance to the city.  I made a couple wrong turns, which allowed Carissa to find some throw pillows for our new free couch and loveseat and then we finally found Frank the mattress guy's flat at Hinterm Wall 4.

Frank's street - Hinterm Wall

After looking at the mattress Frank suggested we walk over to the original Rathaus for the best ice cream in the region.  The original Rathaus is right in the center of town and a beautiful square with some outdoor dining, a fountain, and an outdoor market.  We browsed the market on the way to get some ice cream and then sat by the fountain and enjoyed the sun.  While we were sitting there the bells on the Rathaus began to play some sort of tune and I noted that finally we had our first true European experience.  Graf is a nice little town, but since we've been living on the base thus far, it's pretty much like living in America.  After the ice cream Carissa bought some fresh produce from the market and Lydia, Haaken and I got some sausages on hard rolls from a street vendor.

Tulips in the park

Weiden Rathaus

Rathaus Bells

Ice Cream break

At this point we had to head home to Graf because we had promised the kids we would take them the a USO carnival on post.  We hadn't been in the USO building yet and it's a nice facility for the soldiers to get on computers / email for free, call home, play some video games or watch moves, and it even has a really nice kitchen which I presume anyone can use to host parties, etc.  It was a Military Family appreciation event, so Carissa and I felt a little strange being there, but the kids had a good time playing carnival games, jumping on the castle outside and eating ice cream.  We assumed the carnival would've been  outside, but afterward we went over to the school playground and just relaxed in the sun while the kids played.

GES Playground

We wrapped up the day by going to the PX and buying a badly needed GPS and then headed over to the house to take some measurements of the rooms.  Of course that's the only thing I forgot to take pictures of...

GPS shopping

Today is beautiful again and we spent the morning driving around looking at a bed for the girls and some bookshelves that Carissa and I are going to use to hold our clothes.  This afternoon we are thinking of going to a nearby town and doing a little hiking.  Then it's back to the grindstone for the next few days.  We can start moving our stuff into our house on Friday.  One more week / week and a half of hard work and then hopefully things will calm down a bit.