Germany - Downtown Bietigheim Again

Last night Dr. Kugler took Mark, John, Karel and I to dinner in downtown. Mr. Dieter Ruffner and Ben drove up from Stuttgart to join us. Somewhere in the communications of when and where, Dieter and Ben got the idea that we wanted to meet at 6:15 at the restaurant, and our plan was to meet at 7 at the hotel, reservations at 8. So Ben and Dieter got some quality time together, and we did a little city tour, took a little different route than Mr. Honicke and I took, so these pictures will be different than what you have seen. Here we go..

A picture of some of the old housing that runs along the river as we enter town.


Picture of a pathway next to the river Enz with the fountain in the background on the right

This is a shopping mall the closed about 12 days ago. The company that owned it is large and owns many malls, but was having financial difficulties and closed this and a few others. That would suck to have had a shop in there.

A couple pictures of a fountain that is across the Enz river from the city

And the gardens on the far side of the fountain

This is looking back across the bridge after we crossed it back towards Bietigheim

This is the opposite view looking into the city

This we just found flat out interesting

This is another fountain right in the city, they have a lot of interesting drainage routes and fountains all over

Just really old buildings and churches, like 400-600 years old

This is a shot from the restaurant we ate at this evening, please forgive John's expression, he was really hungry

This is Ben's meal, Haxenteller is what it's called, translation, the leg of some animal with some greens and spuds around it....reminds me of a jobsite I have been to recently.....hmmm

This was a glass of good Lemburger wine I was drinking....at a brewery.

I have been doing well remembering to not drink until we all have said cheers and looked each other in the eyes while over here, a German custom, and tonight was no different. However, I took this picture right after we decided to also touch glasses after a cheers, I touched a few, but as I got to Dr. Kugler's glass, he told me to put my wine down, we only touch glasses with beer :-) We all got a good laugh out of that one, as I was shunned from the group due to my choice in drinks.....much like in the US :-)

And these two, not sure what to make of it, if I had to guess, Ben just won a pair of Chris Webber's old Michigan shorts at a carnival. While Ben was winning those, John filled up on cotten candy, and then threw up on the Tilt-a-Whirl....that's my best guess