Rothenburg

We went on our first USO tour yesterday.  We went to Rothenburg, Germany.  This town is a medieval town that actually has a stone wall around the entire city.  The stone was actually taken from the Emperor's castle.  The city people destroyed the castle to build two towers and the wall.  It was destroyed during the bombing of WWII, but they are continuing to rebuild it.  Some of the neat things we learned on our tour was that in Rothenburg they used pulleys and the used the pulleys to lift heavy loads.  If their husbands came home after midnight the wife would send down a sack.  The husband would get into the sack and if his wife was happy with him then she would have the servants hoist him up.  If she wasn't very happy he would stay in between the floors.  Here is a picture below.

They also had certain fixtures on their shutters that would indicate whether their mistress/ mister was able to come in, or if their wife/ husband was home they would be asked to stay away.  The town had a great Christmas market as well.  They had white Gluewein... we didn't partake in any but it was there nonetheless.  This town is pretty special because General Tilley came in and wanted to destroy the city.  He said if one of the counsel members could drink a gallon of wine that he would not destroy the city.  As the legend goes he drank the gallon in one gulp.  They are both featured in the market square on the town clock.  Picture below. 

We really enjoyed our tour, and are ready for our next tour.  The housing office told Rick today that we might get our house by Wednesday.  It would be nice to be at Robinson Barracks (RB) before Christmas.  We are still looking at purchasing a car for me.  We had one that we liked but he sold it today.  Hopefully this weekend we will be able to walk to downtown Stuttgart (if we are living at RB) and try out some nice restaurants.  We met some nice people yesterday who might also be moving up to RB so we are going to try and get together with them.  Everyone has been so friendly here; we have really enjoyed ourselves.

In our initial training we received pedometers.  Saturday I walked 17,424 steps, yesterday 12,884 steps.  I am enjoying all the "free" cardio!  I think my legs are starting to get used to all of the walking.