Our first road trip

Hi there everyone!

We are just about ready to close out our first full day in Germany/Switzerland. Even though we arrived here yesterday late morning, I was still feeling the effects of "jet lag" today. The movement of the car beckoned me to close my eyes and snooze a bit, although, I was much too interested in the countryside, to give in to that temptation very easily! It's a good thing that Lee was driving, or we would have been in trouble for sure.

Our trip today took us to Basel, Switzerland (about a 2 hr. drive from Busingen, Germany (our home base while we here). While there we viewed the house where one of Lee's idols, Leonhard Euler(an 18th century mathematician), lived. His father, pastored the Protestant Church next to the house. If you want to know more about Euler you will have to ask Lee. His math friends certainly appreciate his interest in this remarkable person. While in Basel, we almost got trapped in a parking garage. We were driving around the city, trying to find an appropriate place to park, when I saw the sign that said parking (frei.) Well, I know just enough German to be dangerous. Frei translated into English means free. We were amazed, but thought we would take advantage of such a good deal. It turns out that the ticket we picked up when we drove in was not accepted when we tried to drive out because we hadn't paid the fee. The word Frei in this case meant that parking spaces were available, not without cost! How was I to know that! At any rate, one kind Swiss lady whom we approached to find out what we needed to do, educated us and very graciously gave us the 2 Swiss francs we needed to pay the fee. We hadn't exchanged any of our money for francs yet. We had Euros, but that wasn't what we needed. She was definitely our guardian angel today.

We had another interesting experience of European hospitality today. We saw a McDonalds in a village along the way and since it was lunch time, we decided to be safe and get a sandwich that we would recognize! The menu wasn't nearly as extensive as our menus in the States, but adequate. Well, we went to pay for our lunch and for some unknown reason their credit card machine would not read our card. The girl who was able to speak a bit of English called over her manager who I think spoke even less English. But the manager seemed to ascertain what the problem was and she let us eat our food without paying for it. She was another gem as far as I'm concerned. Needless to say, we now have a few Swiss francs so hopefully this won't happen again. What a day!

The day has actually ended on a higher note. We took a walk around Busingen this evening. As Lee has probably already mentioned - European Nazarene College- where we are staying, is situated right along the Rhine River so we decided to walk the path along the river and then do some exploring in the hilly, terraced neighborhoods. It is so unlike anything we have in Oklahoma. The houses are primarily very old - most of them with a stucco facade. Window boxes with gorgeous flowers everywhere are so appealing. We plan to go to Stuttgart, Germany tomorrow to see an "old" college friend from Olivet days. That should be fun. It's time to wrap this up for now. Hopefully Lee will get some pictures posted soon. Please keep praying for us.