Bad Winsheim Day 1

This was the first day that J started her CLE.  She spent the bulk of the day learning about international law.

I spent the day exploring Bad Windsheim.  I took Etsy for a walk early in the morning, of which it was still dark, so little exploring occurred.  After breakfast with J and a few of her colleagues, I explored more.

It is worth noting at this point that one of these colleagues is in the similar situation that J and I are in: wife works as the Army JA in Belgium and the husband is a civilian trying to find his niche in a virtually all female military spouse environment.  He was supposed to come with her, but their daughter had things with school going on this week that they did not want to keep her from attending.  We hope to meet the both of them soon and have some time to socialize.

After breakfast, I worked on blogging and then took Etsy with me to explore.  We chose to go south.  We were immediately greeted by a statue that I mentioned in the previous blog.  It is right next to a church, but is actually a World War I memorial.

We wound up encountering a small lake, probably man made, but what was quirky about it was fish were jumping from the surface every 30 seconds or so.  I don't know why, but it certainly was different.  In retrospect, I should have taken a video.  It was as if the fish were on drugs or something.

I also saw a duck of which I was unfamiliar.  I took its picture so I could try to identify it later.  Bordering the far side of the lake was a small creek that the locals used as a moat.  All of them had their own little gated bridges across it.  Some of them were fancy.

This second one is fancier, but all you have to do is swing your leg around the gate to get in.  All of the other owners have some sort of gate around the doorway to avoid this.

It was a colorful morning romp.  Here are some other pictures...

After lunch with J, Etsy and I went the other direction where we heard rumors of a big park.  I liked this building on the way because it looked like the faces on either side were vomiting the pretty banner carved in stone.

The park we walked to was crazy huge!  It must have been the size of the city itself.  When you tack on the farmland that extends beyond it, which is also readily walkable, it makes easily for miles of flat and pretty rustic / suburban trails.  I tried to take pictures that showed this as best I could.

The above is the closest part of the park to town.  Here is the path that extends the whole length of the park and beyond...

It keeps going...

...and going..

...and going so far that I couldn't take enough pictures to properly demonstrate it, but the park itself definitely goes for at least a half mile if not a mile.  The path actually keeps going from there, and goes through farmland for several more miles.  I found out at dinner that the area is a "permanent" volksmarch area, unlike the common volksmarch areas which are only held for a day.  Here, there is a permanent station where people can walk their volksmarch stretch pretty much whenever they want to.

I've hit my data limit for pictures today, so I'll have to wait until I get home to put the rest up.  It was nice countryside.  J and I are truly midwesterners in that we like the vast relatively flat stretches of land.  Something about the wide stretch of land that somehow feels comforting...like now big the world really is, or a feeling of freedom and space and wilderness.

Until tomorrow.