Am Bodensee!

Hello friends! I am here to tell you about our recent wanderings! 

On Friday, the Summer Program here organized a big-shabang trip down to this gigantic lake, the Bodensee, down on the border between Germany and Switzerland.  Where is that, you ask?  Well, luckily for you, I have created a masterful map for you using some elementary googling skills and Paint. 

See us there in Tubingen?  We took a sweet bus from there about 2 hours south to Konstanz, smack dab in the middle of the Bodensee! 

And this, friends, is the Bodensee.  It's HUGE.  This picture does not do it justice--have no fear though, a later picture I have in store will attempt it! 

Isn't it gorgeous though?

Oh, and Jesse got to come! We gave the program organizer 20 Euros for his bus fare, breakfast, and dinner (worth waaaaaay more than 20 Euros--but that's what they asked for!) and he got to come too! I was very pleased to have him there :)  And, obviously, he was pleased too! 

On the tour, we got to see some SWEET thousand-year old churches.  This one has been well-maintained and likely recently renovated, because it's still used today!

Next to that sweet church was this SWEET house.  Seriously guys, Jesse and I have decided that once we are independently wealthy, we are going to buy a bed and breakfast on the Bodensee and live there happily ever after.  You're welcome to visit, of course! 

This is the other sweet church we got to see! I think it's a liiitle bit older, and considerably smaller.

But the frescoes inside are something else! Interesting cultural note: We saw lots of orthodox churches in Russia and inside they'd have lots of frescoes of biblical stories too, but in those churches they'd have frescoes from floor to ceiling with no borders or boundaries or anything, in a seeming attempt to cover every possible surface with depictions of scripture! The german/roman catholic style was different--there was more of an attention to which particular stories were depicted, and, of course, more order.  It was very interesting!

Ok, story time! This church is named after Saint George, the saint that slew a dragon, or, as our theology-professor-tour-guide said, "he fought battles for the church." By means of background, Saint George is a pretty important saint in Russia and many other countries, and he's the patron saint of England! Anyways, the arch-bishop that resided here also happened to be the guy who got to crown the king, so the pope decided to entrust him with a very important relic....the head of Saint George! 

So they put George's head in crypt under the church, where he/it remained for about 200 years....when they went to check on him/it and discovered it was so damp down there, he was molding! At that point, they remodeled the church a bit and created an above-ground alcove where they dug a little hole and replaced the head of Saint George. And, they don't open the place he's in because they're worried it might disintigrate the moment do, as well as because, as our awesome tour guide says,  "I believe it's there, and you believe it's there, and we don't look!"  :D :D 

(this is just a statue, not the head.  Have no fear.)

One more reason we'll one day move to the Bodensee--SO MANY WILDFLOWERS.  

After wandering around lovely churches and heading into town to eat SUPER cheap and delicious bread and pastries, the whole group took a ferry across the lake to Meersburg for the rest of the day. 

And behold: the vastness of the lake! It looks like the ocean!

(also, small discovery: being pregnant makes me a liiiitle bit motion sick on the water.  Not much, just a little.)

And here we are, approaching Meersburg!

In Meersburg, we went to this sweet open-air museum that recreated bronze age dwellings...they lived on stilt houses on the lake! Nuts! 

And hey, look, I'm still pregnant!

 After the museum and before dinner, part of the group program included a mini-winery tour and wine tasting. For the 15 or so of us Mormons there, this was a little less than exciting (seeing as we don't drink alcohol!), and for the people working at the winery, it was very confusing! They had grape juice for us instead, but every time one of us said we didn't drink wine and wanted grape juice, they looked at us very confused, because what business do a bunch of grown adults have not wanting to be part of a wine tasting?  It was pretty entertaining ;) 

Anyways, being a winery, we should have expected that they'd know how to do grape juice REALLY well.

Cause they did.  There were 8 of us at our table, and we probably went through 8 bottles....and by the end we were all on a pretty huge sugar high, laughing our heads off and having a grand old time! Afterwards, Jesse and I bought 2 bottles (only 2 Euro each? YEAHHHH) cause we were pretty sure we were addicted and would need to fuel our addictions later ;D

Yeah, it was good stuff.  

Anyways, after that was dinner, and then a long bus ride home! We're so happy we got to go though--this isn't a trip we'd likely have done on our own, and certainly not one we'd have been able to do so cheaply! And, it introduced us to the place we'll live when we mysteriously become incredibly wealthy! ;)