Gunzenhausen Connections

Few US families are origninally from the American continent, and yet not many US families still have relatives in their home countries with whom they still communicate. We are very fortunate that Elena's cousins and two uncles (her mother's brothers), who reside in the southern German town of Gunzenhausen, are close to our family. During our stay in Zurich we have enjoyed 2 visits with the Ulrich/Brandstetter clan and its various members. First, Stephan, Christina and their youngest 2 children (Louisa 14, Conrad, 13) visited us in Zurich during early June, during the initial round of the Euro Cup. In early July we returned the favor by driving the 4 hours via autobahn to Gunzenhausen. We enjoyed visiting with some of the family's oldest members: Friedi (96 in October), Lini (94) and Gretel Oma (89) and also meeting Johanna (Christina and Stephan's oldest daughter, age 16) again. Gretel Oma and Elena's Aunt Gisela made yummy Nuernberger bratwurst (the best) and sauerkraut for us on the first night we arrived.

We also got a great overview of their scenic hometown with its beautiful lakes and endless biking trails. We were also introduced to Sonny, a local entrepreneur who organizes great outings and has a really cool gallery where you can dress up in real Roman war gear, target shoot with cross bows (Christina won) and pound nails into stumps (all after several shots of the local liquor).

Elliot attached himself to Conrad for pretty much the whole visit (thank you Conrad for your kindness and patience!). Conrad loves to build models and is very good at it. Elliot is fascinated by this and was content to just lay on Conrad's bed and watch him while he very patiently pieced together tiny intricate parts of his model. Isaac rediscovered the piano and played all the songs he learned from Meg last year that he could remember.

On the way back we couldn't resist stopping at LegoLand, a theme park with cool stations where you could build cool stuff with a huge supply of Legos.

We are now fortunate that Hans, the youngest of Elena's uncles, volunteered to accompany us to Zurich and help us prepare for the eventual trip back across the Atlantic. He is helping us do our best to meet the strict Swiss standards for cleaning that are necessary before returning our apartment back to the University. We are enjoying some of final days here with him before we bid him adieu as he heads to his friends in Friebourg and before we bid adieu to Switzerland.