Guten Tag - that means "hello" in German. We recently went to Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich. We were very surprised at how much we liked Germany - I guess we weren't expecting everything to be so pleasant. The people were extremely nice. On more than one occasion, someone was talking to us in German and we had blank stares on our faces as we struggled to say that we spoke English - then they spoke to us in English and apologized for speaking to us in German in the first place - now that's impressive - they apologized to us because we didn't know their language in THEIR country - some countries get mad at you for this and pretend that they don't know English at all. On top of that, they were all very friendly in general. We kinda felt like we were back in the southern US! Well, not quite that close to home. Half of the conversations we heard were spoken in English anyway. Most people just took one look at us and spoke English right from the beginning - I guess we just look like tourists that don't know German.

Berlin was our first stop - seeing the remains of the Berlin Wall was absolutely amazing - the feeling we got while we were there is unexplainable. It's unbelievable that this wall was up just 15 years ago - and people who tried to cross it were shot and killed - 15 years doesn't seem too long ago for that. Checkpoint Charlie was a border crossing for non-Germans - and confrontation between American and Soviet tanks. A guard s stands there today holding an American flag. A memorial of crosses has been set up here in memory of those who were killed trying to pass the wall to gain freedom. The picture to the left is the largest remaining part of the Berlin Wall.

We took a city bus tour in Berlin to see all of the other sites around the city. While we were at the Victory Gate, we saw guards with machine guns and police all over the place. The next thing we know, lots of police cars come down the road and guess who they're escorting? The Queen of England - she has meetings there a couple of times a year, and one happened to be while we were there.

The atmosphere was really cool in Berlin. There was a mixture of old and new - we saw remains of buildings and statues that were blown up during World War II as well as some modern skyscrapers. The Kaiser-wilhelm-gedachtniskirche is a memorial church standing with a truncated spire because it was blown off during the war. I also enjoyed some fine German beer, and Jill enjoyed Ka Da We (Europe's largest shopping mall).

We took a train to Frankfurt - aka "Mainhattan" because of the skyscrapers (including Europe's tallest) that resemble Manhattan. It didn't look anything like Manhattan to us - there are about as many skyscrapers as there are in Atlanta.

A few highlights - we checked out the view from the top of the Main Tower (Frankfurt's second largest building), went to Holzhausenschlosschen Castle (still has a moat), and ate the best worschts in town at Snack-Point. Frankfurt is not so much of a tourist city - it's the most international business city in Germany.

Next stop, Munich. On our first day, we took a train to Bavaria to see a couple of Ludwig's famous castles. Neuschwanstein Castle is incredible - Cinderella Castle in Disney World was modeled after this one. This castle stands on the Alps - the view of Bavaria from up there is amazing.

That night, we went to the world famous Hofbrauhaus - we really got a feel for the German culture here. We could tell we were 4000 miles away from home. This place is a lot a fun - it's set up with a bunch of long wooden tables and benches, and every one of them are full. We finally found a spot to squeeze into with five other Germans - and they spoke no English at all. And the beers are gigantic - biggest mugs of beer that I've ever seen in my life (each one holds about a liter). So here we are in the middle of Germany, sitting with five natives that don't speak English, huge mugs clanking left and right (apparently the rule is that you can call a prost - which is German for "cheers" - at any time and everyone must take a gulp), loud German music blasting, people dancing, and everyone was singing along. We started off without much interaction with the people sitting at our table, then we had our German phrase book out and we were all cutting up, and finally I had them all singing the Alabama fight song (just kidding, but if I thought there was any chance they would understand the words, I would have given it a shot).

Some other cool sites in Munich - Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) with the famous Glockenspiel clock, Altes Rathaus (Old City Hall), climbing the tower of Peterskirche (St. Peters), Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan (Theatine Church of St. Gaetano), Residenz (Palace), and the many nice Platz areas. The best way to explain our trip is through the pictures. The captions under the pictures show what we saw better than I can explain right here in the text. Here are the links to our pictures in Germany - Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich.

We really enjoyed the German food - we had it almost every night we were there. Weiner snitzel was the best, and the worschts were a very close second. For those of you who know me well, know that I'm not a big vegetable fan - lots of German food consists of meat and potatoes - my favorite! Instead of having little desserts and pastries all over the place, they sold bread and pretzels - you can't walk three steps without seeing this stuff being sold - it came in handy at the Hofbrauhaus though!

That about wraps it up for Germany - a great time all around! What else has been going on? I've been working really hard (as usual), and Jill has been working hard as well. She recently pulled an all-nighter as an extra at a movie shoot. She will be appearing in a new movie coming out called Revolver (some kind of gangster movie). The movie is directed by Guy Ritchie (Madonna's husband), and Ray Liotta & Vinnie from the Sopranos are starring in it. Speaking of stars, we went and saw Christian Slater in the play, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - this was a great play - all of the actors were incredible. Notice the picture of Jill hanging out with Mr. Slater.

We played the game "Cranium" with Justin and Rachael the other night - the "English" version that is. That makes it pretty tough - we had never heard of half the people that we had to act out. And how would you act out the phrase "sick as a parrot"? What happened to "sick as a dog"? One other thing that makes us feel like we are far away from home - before the NFL games come on, they go over the "rules of the game" - that's just plain weird.

Jill and I are going to be an aunt and uncle again! That's right, Shae is pregnant again! A big ole congratulations to Shae and Billy! We can't wait! Don't forget to check out our updated pictures of London. We're heading to Amsterdam for the weekend, so we'll let you know how that goes on our next update. We love and miss you all! Take care and God bless!