Day Four: Black Forest

Today we woke up at 8:30, are breakfast, and then got into the car to go to the Black Forest about 2 hours away. The Black Forest is a forest (duh) but differs from the rest of germany because it is heavily wooded and is very hilly. 

We stopped at the top by a ice cold mountain lake, had lunch and some Black Forest ham. (Fun fact, Ham was invented in the Black Forest, who knew?) We then went to a old german town down at the base of the mountain and looked at the preserved 500 year old houses, sawmills, and stables. They had two horses, sheep, goats, and grew some very interesting plants.

After this we sat down and had some Black Forest cake which was quite succulent. 

Cory and I also split a Weis-Cola which was pretty gross 

(Beer and cola) weird combo. We then drove home, went to dinner at a Biergarten, and are now about to go to bed. 

-Elliott 

Cory: Day Four...kinda scary that we've already had three full days here, fortunatly we have two full weeks left. Got up kind of late again today and had another great breakfast(Mom and Dad I will eat fresh bread, meat, and cheese every morning if you're ever wondering if you should get me anything). hit the road not totally sure what to expect out of the day but all of my memories of what I thought was the Black Forest were cool so I was excited. Drove for a while on the Autobahn until we reached Baden-Baden, where we got off and began to make our way into the Black Forest. Supposedly Baden-Baden is heavily inhabited by rich Russians and older Germans and due to the large amounts of money there are some cool buildings.
So after we got into what was actually considered the Black Forest, we drove up the side of a mountain for a solid 25 minutes. Before we rounded every corner I would be thinking that we must be at the top, we werent, and that lasted for a while. We eventually got to our destination and it was cool. It was a small hotel right next to a mini lake that was chill. The forest extending up far past the lake and the German hotel sitting right next to it was very picaresque. There were even a couple paddleboats that people were cruising around on. The boys and I decided to take a comfortable stroll around the lake that unfortunately got a little too extreme at one point. Grant asked me to jump over some log off the roof of some little hut ( hardcore parkour) and when I landed, I almost broke one of my Teva straps and stubbed my toenail or something(totally thought it was going to turn purple but I think its good).

Didn't really hurt but I was pained by the fact that my Tevas are no longer operating at 100%,😢. After finishing our walk we hung out by the side of the lake eating bratwurst and drinking some beer.

We then got back in our bangin' Mercedez van and hit the road. We drove along the top of the mountain we were on for a while and it was really cool. It got hit by a tornado in 2000 so all the plant life was very young but ya tornados hit the tops of mountains...who knew. Anyways, we drove to some area in a valley where they had transported a bunch of old houses from the Black Forest. It was really cool seeing what people lived like a long time ago and getting to go inside a house that looked similar to the ones scattered along the road. After this we headed into Speyer to do what we were supposed to the first night when we slept in.
We went to a biergarten and got these huge beers and had some grilled sausage, potato patties, and sauerkraut. (Typical of the Pfalzer region where we were.) After dinner we bought ourselves a mini keg to bring home and enjoy in the hot tub. We then walked around Speyer for a while and looked at a huge church and a tower that was a part of the city's walls when it had them. While walking around we saw tons of groups of teenagers who were just walking through the streets, all seeming to be going to the same place, openly drinking, which was obviously really weird for us. After that we headed back to the Sauberts house, Parker and I went and got some ice cream and then headed home and we ended the night in the hot tub. Tomorrow we are spending the day in Heidelberg and will be moving to a new place of residence tomorrow night. Not sure if we will have a computer or wifi so we may go dark for a few days but we will try our best to keep you updated.
-cory