This is really cute and totally spontaneous:
So the town is very proud of this little story of something that supposedly happened in 1631: the Catholic army came and took the Protestant town and was about to rape, pillage and plunder the whole thing when he challenged the Mayor to see if he could drink a whole tankard of wine. He said they would leave the town if the Mayor could do it and so, the Mayor did drink a whole tankard of wine, the Catholic Army left and the Mayor slept for 3 days. There are many commemorations of this little story all over the town. Here you can see the Mayor drinking the wine:
Rothenburg is a fortress town, and the whole village is surrounded by a wall. Once we walked inside the walls it was as if we were entering another century. There were very few cars and everything was so picturesque! Here is a shot of the wall- if you look on the left side, that's the wall.: 
One of the things we have noticed while out and about is that we are a little more conspicous here as we are not drinkers. We walk into a restaurant and over half of the menue is liquor, which is fine- we just don't order any. I think they usually resent the fact that we aren't big spenders on the beer. We do tip very generously, though. One of the other things we have noticed is that the Coca Cola is very expensive here- usually about $4-5, with no refills. A lot of the beers are cheaper than that. Shoot, the beer here is even cheaper than the formula: 
Just kidding- don't call CPS or whatever it's called here in Germany! Right off of Market Square is the Town Hall Tower: 
So, Matt and the kids decided to climb up to the top of the tower (There was no way for me to get the stroller up to the top, so Tori and I waited at the bottom) 
Here they are at the very top; quite proud of themselves! 
Here's Isaac on the crazy narrow staircase: 
Here is a view of the town from the top of the tower. I don't know if you can tell, but it was raining pretty steadily. We were a little worried that it would rain all day and we wouldn't be able to explore the city. 
So, since it was raining, we decided to try one of the museums first. We ventured over to the Dollhouse and Toy Museum. The whole place was very narrow and had several floors. They had so many toys and a whole room of Barbies, which was truly exciting for Miss Daphne. Here is one of the lovely Dollhouses: 
Here are my three precious ones at a little school desk at the museum: 
After that Museum, we decided to try to walk around and find a covered spot where we could eat some lunch. It was very wet and rainy, however, and Daphne (who had insisted on wearing flip flops) was flopping mud onto the back of her skirt with every step. We decided to head back to the car and eat. As we were eating lunch, it stopped raining and the sun came out- Yay! So, we decided to take a walk around the city and see some of the historical sites. This walk ended up being less eventful than we anticipated, but quite lovely, nonetheless. 
I had a moment of sheer joy as I looked down this gorgeous street and saw my three favorite people walking all together. I think this is one of my favorite pics from the day because this scene will be forever etched in my memory: 
Here we all are together! 
More cute sites from teh town: 
The village had these big horse-drawn buggies that you could ride in for a tour of the city and we saw them everywhere. Everytime one came nearus, Tori would get so excited she would start shaking and point. She would kind of mumble to herself in her little excited voice. It was positively adorable: 
This is the kids and me on the corner of Market Square: 
So, after a lovely walk around the city, we headed back to the Castle Garden, which is the sight of the video at the top of this post. This was probably my favorite part of this little trip. The castle gardens were intensely peaceful, which probably sounds like a contradiction of terms, but you walkd through the archway into this sanctuary of nature. The scents and sounds were all so exquisite, but calming at the same time. Maybe it's just that I live in a state of frenzy as the mom of three very busy children. The garden itself made me want to speak quietly, to exhibit a sense of reverence... for nature, for God's creations which were so beautifully displayed there. I haven't included all of the pics from the garden, but here are a few. 
The castle garden is located where the castle used to stand, and from the walls you can see a breathtaking view of the rest of the city, which sprawls out from the site of the former castle, completely surrounded by the stone wall. We decided we needed some pics of us with this in the background. Of course, our amateur photography can't do justice to the sight, but you can almost see how beautiful it was: 
Okay, so I know I look like I am saluting here, but I really am just pulling up my sunglasses so Matt can see my face. I really just wanted a picture of this fountain, with the water spurting up out of the boulder in the center. (This is the one Daphne is talking about in the video) 
After we left the castle garden, we walked up to the Kriminal Museum (which is how they spell it in case you wanted to correct me). Here, they house all kinds of remnants of different ways that people were punished during the middle ages. Crazy, freaky, bizarre stuff. (as you can see from the kids' expressions!) But very interesting! 
So there were loads of exhibits, but some the things we found most interesting were the chasitity belts. These particular models were most often used for married women, whose husbands wanted to ensure they were faithful while they were away! Matt could not stop laughing! 
This exhibit was part of one on marriage traditions, and we didn't get a pic of this next part, but they had examples of how they punished women who were not chaste when they got married. I found it particularly interesting that only the bride was punished. Some of the more notable punishments included forcing the bride to wear a veil made of straw (which caused her to resemble Pippi Longstocking), not allowing her to enter the church through the door but through a special entrance called the "black gate", not allowing the wedding to be in a church, and our personal favorite: the "whore wedding"! This was where the bride was escorted down the aisle by two whores instead of her father. How ridiculous! I can't beleive they could get the whores to do that- I can't imagine they would be so cruel. So sad it was funny. Here are some of the "shame masks", which were locked on a persons head and were typically representative of their offense ( a pig mask for acting like a pig and a big nose for being nosy). 
We walked around a bit more after the museum, walked a bit along the wall surrounding the city. We discussed how every now and then, we are just going about our business and we just want to shout, "I'm in Germany!" (as Isaac illustrates here:) 
We stopped at a restauraunt and ate dinner which was actually quite un-impressive, but we had to take a picture of the very amazing (looking) desserts! 
After dinner, we decided to trudge home. On our way to the car, Matt and Isaac were having a race and had to backtrack a little in order to get a picture of this lamborghini: 
It's pretty cool here- BMW's and Mercedes are like Fords and Chevys back home. Our garbage truck is a Mercedes, for example. Maybe we should pick one up while we are here! ;)
