Home is beautiful too

It's been almost a month since I've blogged anything... After I came back from the US, work came back at me full force. We're about to publish a book and there's still some editing to be done and my PhD and and and ...

Well, but I really enjoy being back home. When we were at the Scuteri's place we looked through a book about Germany and all agreed how beautiful it actually is. But still we all want to go and travel abroad. Which is ok, but there are so may great things to see and do here at home. Sometimes you just have to go away or need some friends from other countries to make you realize the charm of home. And here are some examples:

1. Markus and I visited his parents about three weeks ago. On sunday we always go on a trip somewhere around Paderborn. Last time we went for a walk and then visited the Wewelsburg, a castle the Nazis wanted to turn into Germany's center after winning the war. It was a beautiful fall day and the castle's history was really interesting.
2. Seelscheid :). That's where I come from and I think it got a lot of really charming corners and streets and you can go for really nice walks there.
3. Ahrtal: That means Ahr valley in English. It's a valley close to Bonn and they grow lots of wine there. Markus and I went there yesterday. We started the day at Altenahr where Markus did part of his job training. It's a charming village with a castle - pretty high above it ... We walked up there and then we hiked along the Rotweinwanderweg (redwine hike). It was a really nice fall day, you could see some grapes still hanging on the vines and all the trees have changed color here too. Then we drove through some more villages and visited a tiny Jewish cemetary. The old tombstones are covered with stones (reminders of the holocaust) and the whole ground was filled with yellow leaves. It was very quiet and peaceful.
Then we went home and had stew and Federweißer (the first wine of the year, kind of cloudy and the grapes are only partly fermented) and agreed there's still lots more things to see in Germany.
We're already making lists of what to do when our friends from other parts of Germany ot the world visit!