CHURCH -  Missionary Elder Sleeman left last week for his next city assignment.  We had him and Elder Lyons over for dinner.  Sleeman brought over some extra neck ties for Steve to select from.  Wow now Steve is all set with a nice selection.

BIKING

Steve and I put our bikes together on Saturday morning.  Thanks to John doing a great packaging job, they came through the move in great shape.  My bell is the only thing isn't working but I have a spare someplace.  It is still a bit cold for riding since we are still accustomed to riding in southern California.  The temperatures have been in the low 30's.  But on Sunday night it rained and on Monday it warmed up to between 35 and 40 degrees.  I did want to take my bike into a shop to tighten the pedals, get a tune up and buy some panniers or a basket.  There is a bike shop in the next town.  So I bundled up and rode over to find it.  I eventually found it off of an alley but there was a sign as shown below.

At the bike store

Dear customers

Of 28 January to 2 February

is my business because

renovations

closed

We apologize for any inconvenience

Your round Ums wheel team

So I will return to the bike store next week if the weather is good and get things taken care of.  I think I'll see if there are things I can buy at the bike store to help with cold hands and feet.  Those are the things that got cold on this short ride.  The temperature around the lake was around 35 degrees I think, maybe colder.  I had on my knee length bike pants with thermal crew pants over them, two pair of knee sox, one pair of short sox, a under shirt, my PV Bike Chick jersey and arm warmers, a down vest, a yellow knit scarf for my ears, and my rain parka, glove liners and bike gloves.   The next day it warmed up to 45 degrees and all the snow is melted but it is really windy.  I enjoyed getting on my bike.  It has been since September that I last was able to ride it.  It was then packed for the long trip over here.

My bike and the lake by our apartment in the background

I asked  a elderly couple walking by to take my picture.

Me and my bike on the other side of the lake, self timer photo.  The lake is still frozen.

More Snow - no trams
Last night it was raining.  In the morning it was snowing.  Something to do with this kind of weather made all the trams in the area stop running.  Even out of the city from Heidelberg.  No trams.  The snow wasn't very deep so it must have been something to do with the lines freezing.  Steve was able to contact a friend from church who has a car and was able to drive them into work.    I needed to get to class in the afternoon.   I found a special bus was running instead of our tram 7 but it wasn't on a schedule.  I waited about 45 minutes for it along with about 40 other people.  I was smart in that I got on the opposite side of the bus route going on the outbound route so it was pretty empty and was able to get a seat.  The bus only had about 3 stops before returning to the same bus stop that had those 40 people waiting and all had to cram on board.  I had a seat for about 1/2 hour before I gave it to a elderly lady with 2 walking canes that had just come on.   She gave it back later when she got off.  My ride that usually takes 20 minutes on the tram took over an hour because of all the additional stops.  It was really crowded.   But I made it to class about an hour late.  Some of the students didn't make it in.

I thought the snow was pretty on the trees and bushes.

From our apartment window

GERMAN LANGUAGE CLASS
I am taking a beginning German Intensive Language course Monday through Friday from 2pm to 5:15pm.  I started Jan 15.  I missed the first day.  The class is 5 weeks long.  I was hoping it would start out with simple things like the A.B,C's and 1, 2, 3...  but it is more along the lines of "OK. Lets have a conversation."  The instructor only speaks in German.  I am pretty lost a lot of the time.  But I will get better and learn fast I hope.  The people in the class are interesting.  There are about 26 students.  I am the only American.  So far I have found out that we have people from these countries: Korea, Spain, Philippines, Poland, Montenegro, India, Iraq, Romania, Syria, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, and Thailand.  Pretty good melting pot I think.

I have homework everyday.

Here are books we have to help me learn German.  I bought some elementary school books last year and was translating them.

My books and notebook.  The "Schritte plus" is the text for the class.

I have had a week of class so far and feel like I may be getting a bit overwhelmed.   I dreamt last night that I was talking in German but didn't know all the words so I made them up.  People didn't understand me but I kept talking anyway.  Sort of like what happens to me in the elevator when people talk to me in German.  I don't know what they are saying but they tell me about it anyway.

Me dreaming in German

Abendakadamie - This is the building where I take classes.  Abend means evening.

Back to Germany after a visit to the U.S.  We had a great trip and visit with most of our relatives and friends.  The weather in Idaho Falls was the coldest.  California had great weather.  Here in Germany it is mostly grey with temps in the low 30's, some snow but not much stays on the ground.  We walked around the lakes.  There are more swans now.  We counted 12 swans today.

Robin - photo taken by our neighbor

I just love these wood ducks.  There was only one.  I hope there is a mate for it so we can see more in the spring.