I'm alive!!

This web page is all in German, so it's a little confusing :) Well here I am in Switerzland! It's a beautiful country, with happy people, lots of green, lots of water, cheese, chocolate, and cows. Haha. How is everyone else doing? Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who sent me some happy birthdayness. It was a lovely day - we went to the Botanical Gardens in Cambridge, which are very nice. We all (Nancy, Bill, Will, and Allyn) had a picnic under a tree, then they went and looked at the gardens while Will and I just laid around and relaxed in the shade. Then we went punting on the Cam River. It's very popular in England. It's a boat that has a place on the back for someone to stand and push the boat with a long wooden pole. It's actually really difficult, as Will discovered, although he didn't fall in. Then we went to a pub, had chips (french fries), and watched USA get killed playing Czech. They played really poorly. But overall it was a nice day and very relaxing, which many of our days haven't been for me :)

Then Tuesday morning we left early for our plane to Stuttgart, Germany. There we stowed our packs in the main station and went to the Stuttgart stadium to watch the Switzerland v France World Cup game. It was a great game, although no goals were scored. No worries. We decided to be Swiss fans for the day, and bought red and white face paint and painted our faces in the Swiss flag. I'll try to post pictures later. About 75% of the stadium was red for Switzerland, so we had a great time cheering and shouting chants we didn't really understand. Someone stopped Will and I on the way to the toilets to take our picture, which was fun. I am actually quite astonded about not being able to understand German (and now Swiss German)! It's not like I thought I knew German, but I've always been able to decipher Spanish, knowing at least key phrases like "como estas" "como se dice" and such. And so even in my earliest trips to Juarez I could some what communicate and the consonant constructions sounded familiar to me. Here, I have no idea what "the" is, no way to understand: it took me almost 5 minutes to understand and reproduce the number five "funf." So it's slightly frustrating. In a few days it'll be Italian, so maybe that'll be easier on my Spanish loving ears. And we'll be there for awhile.

After the game we took a train to Weinsberg, where some connections had been made through the principal of Rehoboth to let us stay overnight. Allyn and I stayed with the Schick family, who were very hospitable and lovely. They had a girl staying with them from northern Italy, Francesca. She is staying there for three weeks to improve her German more, and in August will be traveling to San Diego to study English more. Maybe we will connect then, as she was very nice and also wants to go to medical school (although the system is very different there). We were very grateful for their helpfulness and assistance.

From there we went to a little bit outside Bonn, where Maria lived, and stayed with her mother for two days. Maria was a spitting image of her, in both looks and personality. We visited her grave site, which was right next to her father's, Franz Josef. It was very moving and we sang "remember me Jesus, when I come into your kingdom" and Amazing Grace. We talked a little bit about her, and Allyn, Will, and I put rocks on her grave that we have been collecting from different places we've been traveling, as it was something she and her father used to do. We will continue doing that for the remainder of our trip, as we will be returning again later with Jenny and Susan. We also drove by her school and the church she used to attend. There are some Forget-Me-Nots on her grave that we picked to press, and some with seeds that we will plant at the Krzymowski house in Rico. There was also a barbeque the night before we left that many of the family, neighbors, friends, church members, and choir people that knew Maria attended. It was really nice to meet and converse with people that knew her and hear how much she enjoyed being with us and how she talked about the Krzymowskis and even me. Her brothers are very nice and I spent quite a bit of time talking to her cousin Sarah and her brother Kai. It was fulfilling and we are all so glad we were able to be there. We continue to think about Maria and I am grateful to have known her and have been a part of her experience in New Mexico.

We leave to Venice on Tuesday, and Susan and Jenny will join us Wednesday night. We are excited for them to be here! Please pray for us as Will and I are trying to plan hostel stays and times and dates and places and it's difficult as we don't have constant contact with Susan and different languages are difficult to cross.

Hope all is well in America!
Lots of love,
Sarah Annette