Frohe Ostern!

Happy Easter!

In a similar vein to my German Christmas experience, I was lucky enough to spend another holiday with a family. My friend Lena invited me to spend the long Easter weekend (both the Friday and the Monday surrounding Easter are public holidays in Germany, and I had them off from work) with her parents at the house where she grew up in Meisenheim, which is a small town/village about an hour south of Mainz by train. Lena's American boyfriend, Nathan's family was visiting the States and they also spent Easter with the Krians at the very end of their two-week tour of Europe, so it was a really full house.

I would describe Meisenheim as quaint, tiny and totally beautiful. It's also apparently full of history, and we were lucky enough to get a "VIP tour" of the town. Lena's childhood friend, Andreas (who is incredibly knowledgeable about the town's history) was nice enough to show us around Meisenheim and give us a true "insider's view."

Here are some photos from our little walking tour and around Meisenheim:

Walkin'.

The Glan River.

Me and Lena in front of the town's medieval church, the Schloßkirche. It was equally impressive inside:



View from the top of the Schloßkirche.

At the top of the tower, braving my fear of heights...


And here is it in the distance:



This guy was just hanging out of the window...

Andreas's family is also currently putting together a villa, of sorts (I don't know if this is the correct term, but I can't think of a better word to describe it -) that has all different types of period-decorated rooms where people can try wine from the family's vineyard, organize a meal, etc... Regardless, the place was absolutely stunning and Andreas was nice enough again to show us around the inside:

Our awesome tour guide.

Andreas letting Mr. Taylor check out the schnapps-in-process.






Lots of wine.


Stained glass window inside the villa. See if you can find the artist's mistake...

Lena's parents were also nice enough to treat us to a wine-tasting and dinner at one of the local vineyards.

The Krian's.

The guy with the white hair at the end of the table brought out a new bottle of wine every 20 minutes or so, talked about it for a few minutes, and then let us drink a little glass. I think we tried six or seven wines over the course of a few hours, most of them freshly-bottled (some of the bottles didn't even have labels on them yet).

And, of course, what would an Easter be without Peeps? Nathan's family brought the Krian's some "traditional American Easter candy" from the States, namely jelly beans, Reeses and those silly, kinda gross marshmallow-like creations that nobody even actually likes the taste of. Nathan demonstrated the equally important American tradition of microwaving the Peeps, promising that they would become "zehnmal größer."

I'm not sure if they actually got ten times bigger, but the poor little mallow-chick did turn into a quite sad little pile of yellow mush:

I'd be willing to the bet this is the first (and last) time this microwave has seen a Peep...

So traurig...

Lena was grossed out. I don't blame her...

In general, the whole weekend was fantastic. The food was great, the scenery was beautiful, and the company was the best. I couldn't have asked for a better Easter weekend away from home with these guys:

Lena and Nathan.

Prost!