A weekend of many small adventures

Hi friends!

We have had a great weekend, and so I'm not going to wait, but will tell you all about it before it's even over.  We never left the Marburg area, so our weekend's adventures were the small kind. Perhaps you think that I overuse the word adventure, but the way I see it, life is just a series of adventures big and small, and even some of the small ones are worth savoring and noticing, so here you go. Savor away.

First, after about 2 weeks of nice warm temperatures, we had rain on Friday and Saturday.  I'm still sick of rain after the winter, but what it meant here is that all of the sudden spring exploded.  Before the rain, a few of the trees had started leafing or budding out as had some of the earliest flowers, but a little rain and poof, the woods are now a gorgeous shade of spring green and the city is full of flowers; magnolia, forsythia, and all sorts of things I don't know the names of (but can appreciate nonetheless).

Something about the newness of spring in the oldness of Marburg makes it more exciting somehow

After months of brown sleeping woods, this color is so lovely!

I don't know what these are, but they're nice.

I decided it was so nice while doing my weekly Saturday marketing that I made Sasha go back down the hill with me in the afternoon to go enjoy a slice of cake at our favorite cafe and to buy supplies for adventure number 3...

Sunday, after church, since it wasn't raining or freezing, we decided to go for a bicycle adventure and played another round of "find the castle".  We picked Mellnau as our destination of choice, and it was a good one.  The castle ruin had a Tower and we love Towers.  And, it had a paved road all the way to the walls, so no wading through muck to find a partial stone foundation this week (not that I mind those rounds of the game, mind you). The fortress was built in the mid 1200s and, to be honest, we had a strict timeline and the paint was pealing off the information sign, so I can't tell you all the details.  Although it seems to have been founded by Archbishop Siegfried from Mainz, and not by a Ludwig or a Friedrich or a Wilhelm (or a Friedrich Wilhelm) for a change. 

Riding up (and up and up) to the ruin.  The views are great, but man do the castle visits work the legs.

If you want more details, here's the sign.

 On the way out, we went through the town of Wetter, and saw a bonus tower, although we didn't stop to explore, so I can't tell you much about it. I think this is a stop on the "Fairy Tale Road" if you're following the brother's Grimm, but I'm not sure. It's a pretty safe guess, though, given how many "Grimm towns" there are around here.

Sasha photographing the unexpected tower...some things about Germany are just great.

We didn't have much time, so we didn't stop anywhere for cake, etc. but I did see a whole field of lambs and sheep on the way home, which made me almost inarticulately excited for several km.  Sasha, if one follows me home, can I keep it?

Wouldn't a lamb like this make you almost inarticulately excited, too?

The reason why we were hurrying back is that we invited a friend from church over to partake in adventure number 3: grilling!!  Although I feel like we mostly see open hibachi-like open grills here in Germany, we managed to find one like a good old Weber (if a mini one to fit our mini space) and charcoal and a few packages of marinated pork steaks (we picked a few somewhat randomly, but they were surprisingly good), vegetables, etc. 

Notice our fully recyclable grill table...after we're done reusing.

I am glad I'm not a German pig, but they are quite tasty.

Sasha manned the fire, I sliced the eggplants and prepared foil packets of zucchini, onions, etc., and it was SO satisfyingly delicious both to eat food fresh off the grill and to be sitting outside into the evening.  OK, so it was a bit chilly, but the birds were tweeting, the grass was green, and life was good.  Life is so good.