Speyer - Blogged by N8

Being the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge of the Wounded Warrior Ministry Center comes with a lot of responsibilities. I manage over two dozen volunteers, collect about $30,000 dollars worth of donations a month from the mail room, set up for Combat Stress classes, and I make sure the Chaplain's Closet is in immaculate condition.

It comes with some great priviliges too. I get to meet all sorts of neat people, I get to give away free stuff (that I didn't pay for) all day long, and I get to work with the best Americans in the world. Another one of those priviliges is that I occasionally get to be the driver on our retreat trips we do during the week. On July 1st, I got to drive a van full of Wounded Warriors to the city of Speyer, Germany.

The picture below is of myself and Silvia with a handful of them when we arrived in town.



I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of myself, just mainly the "artsy-fartsy" stuff I like to take. This picture is of the Mercedes Van I've been driving all over Germany.



I also came across a typical German police car in town and thought it would be fun to have a picture of one in the future.



The rest of the pictures are just some fun, miscellaneous photos I took around town. Enjoy!

Trier - Blogged by N8

The day after my birthday, I was able to visit the ancient city of Trier, Germany on a "Wounded Warrior" trip. I begged my good friend from Poland Miroslaw, or as everyone calls him, Mike, to go with me and he agreed. This is Mike and myself outside the ancient Roman archway that leads into town. It is over 2,000 years old!



The town is full of old cathedrals and religious landmarks. This is me next to a fountain of the Angel Michael.



We also happened upon a couple of funny things in town. This is me next to the smallest car I have ever seen. In order to get into it, you have to open the whole front of it, dashboard and all.



And here I found "Casino Royal". James Bond didn't happen to be there that day...



All in all, it was a great day and I had a lot of fun hanging out with Mike and enjoying such a fun city.

Kaiserslautern - Blogged by N8 and JME

N8 got to drive the van for the 'Wounded Warriors" on their weekday trip a couple Tuesdays ago to downtown Kaiserslautern. First they went to the Kaiserslautern dungeons. You had to crouch down to get into the tunnels. Here is a picture of N8 next to one of the tunnels to give you an idea of how small they are. Someone with claustrophobia would not do well here.



Here are a couple pictures of Chaplain S, who is about 5'4" or 5'5" walking through the tunnels. These tunnels are escape routes for the royalty that lived there.





When archeologists were excavating the tunnels, they found many graves. This is a picture of a real skeleton that they found while excavating. It was kind of creepy to see this actual open grave. The stone that makes up the walls of the grave were chipped away so that they could fit the body into it when they buried this person.



After they went to the dungeons, they went to the Protestant church in the city. It was big and very pretty.







This is a memorial inside the annex of the chapel. The statue for this memorial that N8 is standing by is a statue of Martin Luther.



This one is of Johannes Gutenberg.



His is a picture of outside of the chapel.



This is the oldest restaurant in Kaiserslautern. This restaurant has been there since the 1640s.

IDA-OBERSTEIN - Blogged by N8 and JME

N8 was able to go here with the "Wounded Warriors" on Halloween. Ida-Oberstein is the gem capitol of Germany. All the stores in town sell different types of gems. This is a picture of a museum that has all sorts of gems inside.



The chapel that is seen below is built halfway inside the mountain and halfway outside on a cliff. You have to go through a cave to even get into the chapel. Half of the building is just rock on the inside. The walls are just mountain.





Here is a picture of N8 with the city behind him.



There are two castles in that city. One is a schloss (palace - for royalty) and one is a burg (stronghold/fort - for soldiers). This one below is a schloss.



This picture is of the burg.



This picture was taken at the burg. It was really high up. N8 held his camera over the edge to take a picture straight down to see how high up they were.



This monument is on a pathway leading to the castles. You can see how beautiful Germany is in the fall. All of the leaves are changing colors.

Homburg / Landstuhl- Blogged by N8 and JME



N8 was able to go to Homberg and see the sandmines there. They were discovered in 1932 by some small boys that were playing on the hillside. One of the small boys fell into a sink hole that led into the caves. Turns out, the French, upon getting thrown out of the area, filled in all of the entrances to the caves so that the Germans wouldn't find them.



The caves are 12 stories deep. It takes a drop of water 6 years to travel all the way through the soil from the top to the bottom. When it gets there, it is super clean and pure. That's why one of the most successful breweries in Germany is at the base of it.



The caves were used by the citizens of the area during WWII as a bomb shelter. There are still torch marks on the ceilings where their torches were kept.

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N8 also was able to do a little more site seeing right there in Landstuhl. This was a funny picture he saw. He couldn't help taking a picture of this. I guess they drew a picture in case the dogs couldn't read.

Heidelberg - Blogged by JME

N8 went with the 'Wounded Warriors' to Heidelberg and saw the castle there a few weeks ago on October 10th. The castle was huge. The wine cellar had a 250,000 gallon capacity. The following are some of the pictures N8 took while there:






Below is the hillside behind the castle. It looks like the trees are changing there. It is really pretty. N8 looks pretty good too!



In this picture below, the holes you see were put there by the French. They tended to destroy things whenever they were made to leave Germany. Kind of reminds N8 and I of angry people that are getting kicked out of their homes because of foreclosure and they wreck the place.



When the tour guide brought them over to this part of the tour, one of the chaplains was standing underneath that overhang. It was pretty funny when the tour guide explained that the overhanging that you see is actually a toilet. That is where people would just 'let it all out.' I guess people back then had to watch where they were standing. The chaplain most likely moved out from under there pretty fast.

The other day on my way into work, I felt a drop on my arm and thought it was starting to sprinkle. When I got inside, I looked down at my arm and shirt and saw that I had been a target of a fly-by bird-pooper. I'm sure that back in those days people didn't mistake getting pooped on with rain.

These next pictures are pretty interesting. The statue that N8 is standing by on the inside of the castle used to be on the outside of the castle where the other statue is now standing. They brought all the statues inside because they were getting so old and worn down. The statues on the outside of the castle are fairly new. They are about 50 years old. Notice how both statues are holding a sword and a compass. The statues are supposed to be of the same person and literally standing back to back where the new one is on the outside and directly inside behind him is the old one.




This is another picture of the castle from the city below. Looks like it was kind of a stormy day there.